Alien - The Lone Encounter
by Stormonu
Summary: A hostile alien entity has been born aboard the stellar drydock, Organella. Now the slowly dwindling crew must search the ship and put an end to the creature's predations before ship and crew are destroyed. This is a rewrite of a story I originally wrote in 1990, shortly after the release of Aliens.
1. Chapter 1

Alien – The Lone Encounter

The dark bowels of the starship _Organella_ seemed vast as we shone our flashlights through the spacious caverns of machinery. Though the repair ship was only five decks deep, each deck was a good five meters tall, and in the aft hold, three decks came together to form one enormous dry dock that was lined with labyrinth metal catwalks.

The four of us kept close as we maneuvered along those ice-cold catwalks, shining light into every crevice as we carefully and slowly searched the quietly thrumming ship. Vera, our ship's android, tracked our progress from the bridge. We had been infiltrated by something dark and evil, and now it was somewhere in our ship.

Dante's horror. That's what Fox had named it. Like some nightmare demon dredged up from that ancient story, this creature had birthed itself from one of my crewmembers. Only a few hours ago, the malformed gargoyle that had burst from Holiday's chest had only been perhaps a foot long. Six hours later, we had no idea how large it might be.

Fox, with Brensen's former military knowledge, had helped me crack the encryption on the military vessel where this whole nightmare had begun. We'd watched video witnessing the same birth of one of these monstrosities from some hapless colonist, and we'd seen the adult versions tear apart an entire squad of well-armed veteran marines.

I wished we had never responded to the distress signal we received from the accursed ship, much less that we'd hauled it in to attempt to tow it back to a military port. Damn company regulations and perhaps my own greed at the bounty for returning a military cruiser had gotten the better of me. Though we'd dumped the ship as soon as we discovered the truth, it was too late for Holiday.

The creature was already proving to be cunning. Somehow, it had enough knowledge to cut into the ship's engines, diverting power from lights, heating, air and even preventing us from using the ship's internal cameras to find it. Though Brensen and Greavers had rigged up emergency power to the forward areas of the ship, it was drawing us out and forcing us to deal with the mess it had made of the aft section of the ship. According to Vera's calculations, we had less than four hours remaining to rectify whatever it had done before the engines overloaded and vaporized us.

"Sir, internal sensors are almost worthless in the hold," Vera apologized, her sweet voice ringing in my headset. "There's too much kinetic motion in your area to make anything out."

"No kidding," Brensen growled as his steel gray eyes flicked to one of the many dangling heavy chains in the hold. Unlike the rest of us, at best armed with pistols, Brensen carried a battered pulse rifle Holiday had liberated in his excursion to the military vessel. Brensen kept it at the ready, having strapped his flashlight to the top, somewhat like a scope. We'd been turning off machines as we advanced through the drydock to try and get a better reading, but with all the other support structures that dangled and swayed in the area, Vera was right, it was like trying to single out one individual's violin in the middle of a concert with your eyes closed.

As we approached another console, I sheathed my pistol long enough to examine the readouts. "Another one that's dead," I commented, noting the smashed controls. It'd been the third we'd run across in the same condition. It didn't make a whole lot of sense though, the consoles that had been attacked were the ones that controlled the heavy machinery designed for locking onto and holding ships brought into the repair hold, or the huge hangar doors that lay far below us in the dark.

"Why the hell is it smashing consoles?" Brensen observed over my shoulder.

I shook my head in response. I didn't understand it either - perhaps it was merely some form of vandalism by the organism. But it certainly was strong, and clearly from the size of the dents in the metal, it was fairly large as well - its fists certainly dwarfed Brensen's hamhock-sized fists.

"Captain," Fox nudged me, glancing at the chronometer on his left wrist. "We're losing time here. We need to keep moving."

"Yeah," I agreed, drawing my pistol once again and scanning the dark hold. "We need to keep making for the engine room, figure out what this thing has done to start overheating the engines and reverse it."

"How about me and Brensen go ahead and check the cooling units?" the slight Fox smiled running his hands through his irish red hair, to which the chocolate-colored giant Brensen only rolled his eyes. The two were as opposite as one could be, and as well Brensen's brawn and mechanical skills meshed with Fox's technical skills, they constantly remained on each other's nerves. Leaving Brensen and Fox alone together was inviting trouble. Fox enjoyed pushing Brensen's buttons, and it was clear he aimed the comment at doing just that.

"No, we stay together," I warned. We had all seen how quickly these things could tear even a group apart, I had no desire to split our meager strength any further and give this menace an unwarranted advantage.

"Well, at this pace," Fox sniffed, "We'll be in here all four hours, wasting time with these consoles and such," he stated, wiping his freckled nose with his free hand. It was clear the cold was getting to Fox, which he hated. He'd told us on numerous occasions he'd left Nebraska to get away from the cold. To which Brensen had often reminded him that space itself was even colder.

"Fox is right," Greavers sighed, his latino accent emerging, as it always did when he got nervous. "We can't move at a snail's pace, we've got to fix those engines before something irreparable happens."

"Do you know what that word means, gringo?" Fox teased.

I wasn't sure I agreed with Greavers assessment. The _Organella_ was a class two stellar reclamation vessel. We had stores to fix any sort of system on any sort of spacecraft we ran across, up to and including the class five star liners - the ones designed for months of pleasurable intersystem sightseeing. If this alien creature had done permanent damage to the engines, we had plenty of replacement parts and should have enough time to deal with the situation.

"No," I finally stated, urging the group to move forward. "We stay together - for now."

At a somewhat more brisk walk, we reached the aft portion of the drydock without further incident. Along the way, we passed two more destroyed consoles and a catwalk intersection torn to pieces. Without my permission, Fox had jumped the gap instead of following my lead of finding another way around. It had saved us a few minutes, but I wasn't happy and I let him know about it.

At the bulkhead to the rear section of the ship, I noticed the power to the automatic controls were dead. After uttering a few choice words, Brensen pulled access panel on the lower right side of the door off and began manually winching the door open.

As the bulkhead cleared the first inch, a warm cloud of steam began to issue from underneath door.

"What the hell?" Greavers asked, taking a cautious step away from the sudden influx of warm, foggy air into the cold dock area.

We all had our weapons drawn as Brensen continued to operate the manual jack, slowly pulling the door open. We could hear something rapping against the walls on the other side, and we all took three steps back from the landing. Sweat was beading on Brensen's bald head as the door continued to rise, and I was sure it was just from the exertion or the sudden flush of warmth issuing out from the expanding hallway.

"Greavers - take my rifle," Brensen shouted as something black flickered into sight beyond the billowing steam that trundled in from beyond.

Instead, Greavers was the first to unload with his pistol into the swinging mass. A hair's breadth later, I found myself likewise unloading into the black, spinal-like form that whipped across the open doorway.

"Whoa! Hold it guys! Hold it," Fox barked at us, throwing his arms up.

I'd let off three shots and Greavers' gun was clicking empty by the time we stopped. Brensen, who had backed off as we started to shoot, leapt to his feet as Fox strode towards the open bulkhead door. Before we could stop him, Fox moved to the swinging, braided limb and grabbed it. It hissed and sparked as he brought it up for us to see. "It's just a power coupling," he chided us.

"Son of a bitch," I hissed, feeling foolish.

"Where is all that steam coming from?" Greavers asked, waving his empty pistol at the slowly subsiding steam that crawled out like wispy fingers around the doorway.

"I think we found our engine problem," Fox stated, looking upwards at the ceiling for the conduit's connector. "That damn thing has breached the coolant lines for the reactor." He wiped several drops of condensation from his face before he stopped, suddenly realizing it wasn't water vapor.

It was saliva.

Fox's face froze in terror as the steam cleared above him enough to realize exactly what was hanging from the ceiling above. All we saw were the long, black, chitin-covered arms reach down and grasp him by the shoulders.

Before I could bring my gun back up and Brensen had unslung his rifle, it hauled him up out of our sight.

We heard him scream once, and then a sackful of dark, red blood spattered to the floor below, sending the remnants of the steam skittering away from the vile fluid.

"The Goddamn thing was waiting for us," I could hear Greavers stammer behind me as I found myself racing forward, shouting for Fox. Brensen stopped me before I slipped past him and beyond the threshhold of the bulkhead door.

"He's gone," Brensen breathed, carefully glancing up through the open ventilation shaft beyond the door, his rifle aimed upwards into the bleeding hole. "It's already gone."


	2. Chapter 2

"Vera, Vera!" I found myself shouting into my headset when I could not push past Brensen into the bloody hallway beyond the bulkhead door.

Vera's smooth "Affirmative," snapped me back into some semblance of calm.

"That damn thing grabbed Fox," I stated, stepping back into the repair hangar's catwalk and getting my thoughts back together, "I need you to track him. Tell me where it's taking him." At least I had the forethought to hand out personal tracking bands to everyone before we had left the command section.

Vera did not respond verbally, but instead I could hear her swing around in her chair and her fingers start flying over the bridge's command console. Though she rarely, if ever, expressed emotions, I could tell by her actions that she was, indeed, worried. She had been listening in to our exchange, and had undoubtedly heard Fox's last scream.

"I have his signal," her voice spat back to me after a moment. "He's in motion deeper into the engine core." There was a pause, then she added, "He appears to be between decks two and three."

"It's still in the ventilation system," I remarked to Brensen, who was likewise listening on his own comlink as he still watched the mix of blood and gathering condensation drip from the ventillation shaft.

"Are we going to go get him?" Greavers asked somewhat nervously.

"Yes, we are, him - and _it_," I said through gritted teeth.

"Man, I don't know if that's a wise idea," Greavers cautioned. "It's already got one of us, and I'm all out of ammo."

"Two of us," I stated, reminding him of Holiday. Greavers grimaced at the reminder. I took a moment to back away from Brensen, pulling the clip out of my pistol. Five bullets left, plus one still in the chamber. I doled out three bullets to Greavers, warning him, "Don't waste them."

By the time I had slapped the clip back into the pistol and turned to Brensen, the large man had already swung further into the hexagonal corridor and was glancing between the steam-shrouded hall and the ventilation shaft. Where the huge hangar had been entirely dark other than our flashlights, the light in this hallway would flicker to life for a second, and then plunge back into utter darkness for another two. Between the sudden bursts of light and the fog that filled the area, it was going to make maneuvering the area hell.

I carefully moved up past the dripping ventilation shaft towards Brensen, followed by Greavers, who hesitated at the doorway, peering upward into the black shaft above us.

"Captain," Vera's crackling voice warned me. "Fox has stopped moving. He's on deck three now, near cooling station number six. It is about twenty-five meters aft of your position."

I could see Greavers pale. We'd have trouble covering that distance so quickly while standing up these twisting, maze-like corridors full of hissing and humming machinery. This thing had covered that distance quickly in the ventilation shaft.

"Any luck with ship's sensors on tracking that thing that grabbed him," I asked.

"No, unfortunately. Also, now that you are in the engine section there is too much activity for the motion sensors to be of any use at all." Vera noted.

Greavers, who was likewise hearing Vera's increasingly static-interrupted voice, could only shake his head.

"Captain, the ship's communication network is severed in that section, along with system controls," Vera alerted me. "Once you close that bulkhead door, most likely we will loose communication."

I looked back to the bulkhead door that Greavers was crouched under at the moment. "Captain," Vera stated to us. "Perhaps I should come to you. I share Fox's technical knowledge of the ship and could advise you-"

"No," I stated, motioning for Greavers to shut the bulkhead door. "You stay where you are and monitor what you can. I need you to keep trying to reroute the ship systems to anything that might give us back control back over the ship's power and engine system." Vera sighed compliance, but I was already tuning her out, covering Greavers as he laid his pistol on the ground, out the large splatter of blood, so he could winch the coffin-like bulkhead door shut behind us.

I hated to cut off Vera like that, but she was an android - she'd do what she was told. It was true she had Fox's technical knowledge - the man had programmed that into her himself. He'd also modified her in other ways as well, and at times I could swear she _felt_ for him, perhaps because of it. But in a fight, she'd be worthless - Fox had made sure her Asimov protocols were not only intact, but enhanced.

It had actually been Brensen who had requested those particular enhancements. Though he would never talk about it, I knew Brensen had been in more than a scrap or two during his marine tour. He'd seen or experienced something that had made him want to get as far away from his military career as he could. Also, he could best be described as cool towards our company as well. He certainly had a healthy disrespect for it, so much so I wondered why he'd take a position on our crew, working under contract. His only response was he'd work for us, but he wasn't working _for_ our employer.

When Greavers finished sealing the door shut, he retrieved his gun and grimaced at me. "You know we're going to have go back through it," he said, carefully standing up.

"I don't want it circling back behind us and slipping back out into the hangar," I reasoned. As Greavers pulled up past the ventilation shaft, I turned to Brensen and motioned for him to move forward. I made one last attempt to contact Vera with my headset, but received nothing but static. With the communications network down in this area, I couldn't even hear Greavers or Brensen's nervous breathing through the headset.

We were on the second deck of the _Orgenella_ now, following a hexagonal hallway marked with yellow and black stripes at waist height. Heavy machinery protruded from the lower half of the bare metal hallway, and a myriad of pipes and conduit hung above our heads. Fluorescent lights were suspended at regular intervals above us, recessed above the metal braces that held up the ceiling and pipework. The stark white light slowly thrummed to brilliant life every few seconds then instantly fell to darkness, all along its length as we made our way towards the cooling station. I almost wish the lights were completely out, as the sudden shift to darkness made even the flashlights worthless to see by until the next slowly rising flicker of overhead light.

We were about ten meters down the corridor when it shifted forty-five degrees to the right. Beyond Brensen, I could see two columns of hissing steam pouring downward towards the floor, like some medieval dragon were belching the vapors from its very nostrils.

"That must be the source of the steam," Greavers commented from behind me, vainly trying to run his flashlight up and down the column to pinpoint the source.

"If it is," Brensen stated from in front of me, "that's not good. That's liquid coolant for the reactor."

"Feels damn hot," I commented, still a good two or three meters away. "Can we get past?"

"Gonna be like stepping through a really hot shower," Brensen mumbled, "Vapor's harmless enough, it's just the heat that's bad for you." He stated, taking off his shirt.

"What are you doing?" I asked, shining my flashlight at his face as if it would make him stop.

"There's a control valve on the other side of that geyser," Brensen explained. "I can get through and shut it off. Kill two birds with one stone."

"What birds?" I barked. I knew what he was about to do, and it was the same foolishness that had robbed us of Fox. At the same time, I knew it had to be done if we intended to move off. There was no way I or Greavers would get through without getting scalded.

"If you shut that off," Greavers asked, momentarily distracting me, "Ain't that going increase how fast the engines will overheat?"

Before I could look back to Brensen, the huge man lurched forward, dashing through the geyser with little more than a grunt.

"Goddamn it," I cursed, taking a few steps forward to follow him, before being stopped by the intense heat I felt from the downward columns of steam.

A few moments later, I could hear the protest of the metal valves on the other side as Brensen worked at dissipating the monstrous clouds of steam. I watched intently, holding out my gun in case I should see another glance of the alien creature stalking up on Brensen. But the columns of steam and flickering light kept me from being able to see even Brensen.

After what seemed an eternity, the steam finally dissipated, turning into a warm fog at our feet. As soon as it was feasible, I made my way over to him. "Don't do that again," I half-heartedly warned him. I could see his glistening skin was red and I saw the grimace he tried to hide on his face. "You're burned."

"I'll live," he tried to assuage me, stuffing his half-soaked shirt into his belt. I did notice that he no longer let the strap of the pulse rifle dangle on his shoulder, but that it now dangled beneath the gun as he took the forward position again and led us down the hall.

"Cap," Greavers called from behind me. "Look at the floor."

Brensen stopped and I whirled around, shining my flashlight feebly at the floor. It took a moment to see what Greavers was talking about through the metal grates that covered the piping beneath the main floor. The flickering lights above reflected off standing water that seeped between the pipes.

"Crap," I mouthed. "From the water reclamation system?" I asked Brensen.

"Smell like it's got coolant in it - liquid hydrogen. Must be mixing with the oxygen in the air," he said, after a sniff. "We've got a big leak," he said, "And it's not just from the pipes back there."

"Isn't liquid hydrogen supposed to be cold?" Greavers asked aloud. I looked at Brensen, knowing the answer should be yes. I knew just enough about the ship to also know that the water storage system was tied into the cooling system as a back-up in case of a failure of the hydrogen system. The hot steam we were seeing back here meant that system had kicked in.

"We better get moving," I stated, and Brensen nodded, getting back up and moving on.

A few more meters down the hall, the corridor swung back towards the aft of the ship. Then, after a few more meters, it opened into a large, octagonal chamber. Two other hallways lead out of the room, one to our left and the other to the right. Across the room, protruding from the ceiling were the lower portion of three 5,000 gallon tanks that made up cooling station six. Pipes and conduit ran to and from the system, like a hundred umbilical cords feeding an enormous set of metal triplets.

The floor of the room was depressed by short flight of six steps down, to provide ample headroom beneath the tanks above. However, the room was flooded with water up to just above the first step. In the center of the room, another octagonal structure protruded from the surface, the glistening metal handholds of a ladder leading down protruding upward from padded wall as if they were some sort of periscope. We could hear water cascading down over the inside wall of the stairwell.

Brensen's light followed the trickle of water that cascaded into the pool of a room up strange, glistening stalagmite that lead to the storage tanks. Hissing nostrils of white ice belched from long scratches along the storage tank, eventually melting at the tips and turning into the cascade that ran down into the water below us. The air was oddly hot, and exceptionally humid.

"What... the... fuck... is that," Greavers breathed from behind me, indicating the column that Brensen was illuminating. In the flickering light, I could have sworn it looked like a long, stretched ligament of muscle, half-covered in a dull gray sheathe of bone of chitin. Large, round holes in the stalagmite revealed the corded flesh-like material beneath it and seemed to collect the melting water to direct it into the pool below.

As we watched it in the flickering half-light, I realized the stalagmite was breathing.


	3. Chapter 3

"Did that thing make it?" Greavers asked at a whisper.

"I don't think it's factory installed," I replied, watching the massive column slowly inhale and exhale. The beams from our flashlights moved up and down the gray and white structure. There was no sound emanating from it except the trickle of water down its surface and the soft hiss of the escaping hydrogen at its peak.

I raised my gun at the structure, daring to step past Brensen to the edge of the water as I did so. "Let's see if it bleeds," I spat.

"No!" Brensen hoarsely shouted, shoving my gun downwards before I could shoot. As I scowled at him, he explained, "That thing is metabolizing hydrogen. The stuff's explosive. One spark or ricochet might blow the whole damn thing up. It could easily take the whole compartment - hell, the whole engine with it."

"Shit," Greavers mouthed, moving up. "How are we supposed to get rid of it? Ask it politely to take a hike?"

"I don't see any limbs, eyes or other features," Brensen replied. "It will be here after we kill that damn creature. We can disassemble it with a fire axe or a saw at our leisure."

"Unless it's got that acid defense like our visitor supposedly has," I remarked lowly.

"Are those veins?" Greavers asked, squinting at the top of the column and pointing his flashlight where the metal met the tanks.

"Worry about it later," I stated, taking a tepid step into the water. "Jeez," I remarked with a shiver. "It's cold."

"Liquid hydrogen is -252 Celsius," Brensen stated, pushing me further into the black waters as he followed behind me. "I imagine this is considerably warmer."

I gasped inaudibly as the mid-thigh-deep water swirled about me. I was half-way to the octagonal shaft in the center of the room when I remembered Brensen had been burned back in the hall. I glanced back to see how the towering giant was doing, but he only met my eyes with a determined grimace on his face. I turned back as I almost stumbled and fell into the water, and a few moments more we had reached the dark shaft.

I shone my light down to the next level below us. The floor of that level was likewise covered in the slimy black waters that trickled down over the edge of the octagonal rim of the shaft.

The ladder led down from the second level to the fourth level of the ship, straight through the third gravity plane of the ship's rear. Levels one through three had a gravity orientation that pointed "down", while the fifth to the "bottom" of the third had inverted gravity. That meant the water was collecting on the third level, swamping it, and that hole in the third level that led to the fourth level was a slowly clockwise swirling whirlpool of shining black water.

"I'll go first," I stated, after seeing no sign of either the alien or Fox's remains floating in the water below me. "Brensen, you keep me covered," I stated, cutting off the dark man's protest. "Greavers," I stated, bringing the Latino out of his nervous stare of the waters below, "You keep your eyes on this level." Greavers simply nodded in assent, holding his pistol upwards while starting to scan all of the room, including the pipe-lined ceiling above us.

After shoving my pistol into the back of my trousers, I hauled myself up the octagonal wall of the gantry and seized the cold steel handrail of the ladder leading down. After taking a moment to close my eyes and steady myself, I started my climb down.

I was suddenly reminded of Fox's comparison of the black, armor-plated demon as something out of Dante's Inferno. As I descended the dark shaft, I felt like Dante himself, clambering down the black-furred legs of Satan in Cocytus. I remembered the tale of the king of demons body frozen in solid ice, his glowing eyes scanning all about him for souls to grasp up and stuff into his ever-ravenous mouth. I shuddered again at the cold around me as I continued to descend. Halfway down, the image in my mind overwhelmed me, and I stopped, moist clouds from my breath filling the air.

The area above had been boiling hot and humid. In the black shaft, it was icy cold. The mixing of the hot air and the cold water caused a raspy draft to run up and down the narrow shaft. With my eyes closed, I could perceive it as the very breath of Dante's depiction of Satan himself. I could almost feel the clawed, ebony hand reaching for me, ready to pull me away like some bothersome lice and pop me into a mouth filled with iron-hard teeth. I was no longer sure if was the cold that stiffened my muscles and stuck me to the ice-cold metal handrails or if it was fear.

My eyes snapped open to Brensen's call. "You okay?" He was calling from above, having swung one foot over the pit's edge to come down after me. I nodded my head more vigorously than I intended to, and after a quick glance down, continued my descent into the black pit below.

I finally reached the room below. Unlike the level above, there were no flickering lights. The moisture had apparently shorted the fluorescent lighting, leaving only the faint orange glow from various cycloptic monitoring machines to faintly illuminate the room. It gave the edges of the water a ruddy, almost bloody hue. The protruding machines that lit the room left the walls darks, except for the areas where the phosphorous yellow caution stripes could be seen barely above the water level.

I flashed my light around beneath me to ensure our foe wasn't waiting for me in the water, but the liquid was too dark to see more than a foot into it. After motioning for Brensen to come down, I pulled my pistol out and took a deep breath. Then I stepped off the last rung above the surface of the water, away from the whirlpool beneath me and allowed myself to drop into the water below. It was oddly warmer, but the depth caught me by surprise, and for a moment I slipped below the water's surface before I pulled myself up and regained my balance. Here, the water was waist deep, and I could feel a modest pull towards the swirling whirlpool in the center of the room.

As I wiped the greasy water from my face, I flashed my light around the room, keeping my pistol held outward. Like much of the area above, various pipes lined the walls and the hum of machinery filled the air. As I finished my scan, I froze.

"Brensen, Greavers," I called out, "Get down here now. I've found Fox."

By the time I had trudged my way against the current to the wall, Brensen had reached the room and jumped clear of the whirlpool into the black waters. As I neared, I found my pace slowing as the horror before me became more and more apparent.

Fox had been seated on a pile of machinery above the water level. Around him, a strange, fibrous material had been erected. It reminded me of a shrine, made in the same pattern of gray, hole-ridden exoskeleton, with white, thick filaments beneath the chitin. Fox had withdrawn into a fetal position, in some sort of leathery seat, his head hanging down towards his retracted knees. He was clearly webbed into the strange shrine, and it was difficult to tell where his pale, white naked body ended and the shrine began.

"What the hell is it doing to him?" Brensen asked as he closed to me.

"Is he still alive?" I asked, noticing that like the column above, the whole thing - including Fox - seemed to breathe in unison. Carefully, I moved within arm's reach, grasp Fox lightly by his red hair, and turned his head up to me.

No, he wasn't alive - not any longer. His right eye was gone, a hole bored in its place through the skull, and bits of torn brain dangling from the blood-soaked wound. The hair I held came away in a greasy clump, the skin of the scalp beneath leathery and wart-like.

"Jesus," Brensen breathed as even I was forced to turn away. I could hear Greavers wretch behind me.

Brensen pushed me aside, nearly tipping me into the black water. "We gotta get him out of here," he said in a voice shaking with rage. "I'm...not," he huffed, ripping away at the chitin and fibers that held his body in place, "leaving him here."

That was when the wall beside Brensen tore away, and an elongated, stygian skull seemed to materialize from the piping that had composed the wall. Attached to the rising skull was an emancipated form made of jet and covered in bone. Black, tube-like pipes jutted from the things back, each dripping with showers of rancid water as it rose taller and taller beside Brensen. Its meter-long skeletal arms were too far away to grab the man, but the osseous tail ripped from the water like a skeletal moccasin to lance its spear-like tip through the back of Brensen's left shoulder and out the front.

I was unbalanced by the surprise attack, and fell against a nearby machine cursing. I brought the gun up, but even though the black monster towered over the two-meter tall Brensen, it was behind him and I had no clear shot.

Despite the pain, Brensen was trying to turn around to bring the pulse rifle to bear on his attacker, even groaning with the effort to do so. But the monstrous creature was cunning enough to use its tail to twist him away, even as it drew closer with outstretched hands.

"Brensen!" I shouted helplessly as I watched the eyeless skull of the beast quiver in anticipation of a kill. Steel, cable-like muscles in the thing's jaws tightened as the creature's jaw slid open. Inside the dark pit of the mouth, I gasped as I could see another pair of white, toothed jaws begin to slide forward.

Greaver's gun echoed through the water-logged room with a deafening explosion. I saw a gout of yellow fluid - blood, I assumed - spray outward as Greaver's shot caught it in the skull, just above the shoulder. Greaver's second shot missed completely as the alien recoiled from the first shot. Only as some of the yellow fluid struck the wall and began to hiss and burn away at the machinery did I remember from the videos that the thing had some sort of acid defense - it's blood? I was suddenly glad for all the water filling the room, which absorbed and diluted the rest of the spray.

Instead of falling from the shot as I expected, the creature let out a hideous shriek and stumbled against the wall, clasping the wound. It's tail whipped and frothed at the creature's pain, pulling the spearhead free of Brensen as it did so.

As Brensen managed to collapse away from the creature and clear my line of sight, I unleashed a shot at the creature. By then, though, it had gathered enough composure that it leapt up the wall, and began clambering for the ceiling, a guttural hiss on its lipless mouth.

Despite his wound, Brensen managed to bring the pulse rifle up, unleashing a burst at the creature with a defiant roar. The thing barely dodged the triplet of rounds, which exploded pipes just behind it. Hissing vapor and dangling wire poured out of the wounded pipes, and nearly dislodged the beast from the ceiling above us. It seemed to take the hint - rather than make its way after one of us, it scampered along the roof and disappeared up the flickering shaft we had entered in. Last to disappear was the slim, black blood-stained tail.

We could hear what I could only assume its cursing, fading screeches as we moved to help Brensen back up. "I hit it," Greavers breathed to both of us.

"Yeah, we saw that," Brensen stated between gritting his teeth. I pulled off my soaked overshirt to bind Brensen's wound as best I could as the big man stumbled and tried to keep his balance. "Here, shoot it again," Brensen stated, handing Greavers his pulse rifle.

"We can't leave Fox here," Brensen stated as I supported him and turned to face the way we came in.

"Boss, are we sure we want to go that way?" Greavers asked, pointing the rifle back up the shaft our tormenter had fled back up.

"All the other doors in here are sealed, probably to keep the water out of the rest of the ship," I stated, nodding to the closed doors at each compass point in the octagonal room. "And the controls would be at the bottom of each door, underwater," I added.

"Shit," Greavers stated, slouching. He stepped ahead of me to reach for the ladder and looked up, holding the pulse rifle in the other arm.

"I can't carry you and Fox," I tried to reason with Brensen. The man was obviously in too much pain to argue, so I started forward, motioning for Greavers to lead the way with the pulse rifle.


	4. Chapter 4

"Man, this thing is going to kill me," I could hear Greavers muttering as he inched up the ladder one-handed, keeping the pulse rifle aimed at the top of the flickering passage above us.

"If it's too cumbersome," I replied, helping Brensen to the ladder, "shoulder it until you get to the top."

"I ain't talking about the rifle," Greavers shouted back down at me. We glared at each other for a moment, then Greavers cursed under his breath and slid the rifle over his shoulder. Without another word to me, he scrambled up to the top ladder and vanished over the side.

"Brensen, can you climb?" I asked the big man as he blearily hung his good hand on the water-slicked ladder.

"I…can make it," he said with some effort, swinging himself over to the steel rungs. His foot slipped for a second, but he caught himself. The cold water drizzling over the lip of the hole above seemed to stir some life back into him, and he slowly, step-by-step, began his one-handed ascent to the top.

As soon as I could, I swung over the black whirlpool beneath us and grasp the ladder. Staying a step beneath Brensen, and carefully watching his ascent, we made our way up.

"C'mon, hurry up," I could hear Greavers hissing above as we slowly inched our way up, "I feel like my ass is hanging out in the breeze up here." I could see the beam of the flashlight attached to the pulse rifle swiveling in and out of view as Greavers flashed it about the room above, keeping alert for the black demon's presence. If that thing were to come back while we were in this position, it would be a massacre. My only hope was that with that shot it had taken to its head that it had crawled off to some dank section of the ship to die.

When Brensen was within arm's distance of Greavers, the slightly smaller man took one last look around, again shouldered the pulse rifle and grabbed Brensen under his good arm, intent on hauling the man up rather than waiting for him to finish the climb himself. Though Greavers was no small man himself, he was dwarfed by Brensen's physique. I did my best to steady Brensen from below, but I lacked the strength to push Brensen and ended up just hoping I didn't fall back down the stairs.

Greavers eventually lifted Brensen out of the ladder shaft and helped him over the octagonal wall that bordered the pit. I scrambled up afterward, drawing my pistol as I reached the top. I had two bullets left. That was it.

"Goddamn it, Greavers," I snarled as I cleared the pit and whirled on the latino as he supported a wavering Brensen, "You're supposed to keep us covered. You shouldn't have hauled Brensen up like that."

"He was going to fall," Greavers recoiled, passing Brensen back to me so he could unshoulder the pulse rifle. "If I didn't haul him out of there, he would have taken you with him."

I glanced at Brensen, whose eyes were beginning to show the signs of being dazed. He inhaled sharply and nodded assent at Greavers words. I suddenly wanted to apologize, but found the words somehow struck in my throat.

Greavers did not wait for my hesitation to pass, but instead spun on his heel, sloshing water about him before he marched away from the slowly thrumming alien column behind us and started back towards the bulkhead door we had entered from.

"Greavers, wait," I finally called after him, pulling Brensen along as I trudged through the thigh-deep water. I finally caught up to him when he stopped just beyond the water's edge. He was glancing between the flickering hall beyond the room we were in and the floor as I leaned Brensen against the wall. "We need to stick together," I said in a slightly calmer, weary voice between breaths from hauling Brensen's seemingly increasing weight through the dark water.

"Yeah, I know," Greavers replied, squinting down the hall.

"What is it?" I asked, pulling my own flashlight from my pocket and shining it down the hall.

"It went this way," He whispered.

"How do you know that?" I asked, bringing my pistol up.

"Look at the floor," he stated, kneeling down and pointing at the deck plating under our feet.

I knelt down as well, shining my light where he pointed. It took a moment to see in the flickering light, but as I stared at the metal grills of the deck plate beneath us I began to notice a pattern of holes leading down the hallway from which we had first approached the cooling station. Each of the pencil-sized holes feathered at the edge, and with the flickering light rippling on the polished metal, they looked like miniature silver stars.

"It's waiting for us," I breathed, and Greavers, who was watching down the hall, nodded in agreement.

"You think it's in as bad shape as Brensen?" Greavers asked, glancing over to the paling, crouched giant. It took Brensen a moment to bring his head up in response to hearing his name, and his breath seemed to be labored as he sagged against the angled wall of the passage beside us. For a moment, I wondered why the creature had left such an obvious trail, and had not retreated into the ventilation shaft. Obviously, as quickly as it had brought Fox down to the third deck, there had to be some sort of outlet in the room behind us or fairly close by. Was it that badly injured? Was it trying to dissuade us from the easy way out?

"We've got to get him back to Vera and medlab," I stated. I was sure shock from the blood loss was starting to set in on Brensen. "But I don't want to go into an obvious ambush either." I thought for a moment, and then glanced back into the octagonal room we were departing.

"We can head to cooling station two - on the left, take the ladder there up to first deck," I mused. "If I remember right, there's an access corridor that runs from the engine compartment back to the fore of the ship."

"Yeah," Greavers said dryly. "Wasn't that one of the first places we sealed, because it was a straight shot to the engine compartment?"

"No ladders," Brensen announced. "I don't have...the strength."

"Right takes us to the service elevator," Greavers stated pointing back into the room and to the right. "Thing's big enough for the power loaders, it ought to fit Brensen," he joked, hoping it would stir a laugh from the larger man. It didn't have the desired effect, as the large man only coughed in response.

"Not with the compartment in this shape," I surmised. "I'll imagine it shut down when the power loss back here happened. Otherwise I would have suggested it first."

"Override?" Brensen managed to ask, before wincing and grasping his shoulder.

"We can't stand here all day debating," Greavers chided me. "That engine is going to blow in about - three and a half hours," he reminded me after glancing at his chronometer.

I manuevered myself about to support Brensen, offering the huge man my shoulder. "A walk to the elevators it is, then," I stated, steeling myself for another brisk walk through the cold waters of the octagonal chamber.

It took only about five minutes to reach the antechamber to the service elevator. Like the main dry dock, this dimly lit room was filled with sweaty, dangling chains and hooks that slowly undulated from yellow gallows above our heads. The pipes and conduits that had adorned the walls, floor and ceiling were absent here, replaced with piles of boxes, crates and spare parts strewn haphazardly around the area. Emergency blue lighting faintly thrummed down across the room, creating long shadows wherever it was interrupted by the piles of crates scattered throughout the room.

In one corner, to our left, a power loader waited dismally, its claw-like arms pointed in our direction as if pleading to not be left alone. Umbilicals hung from the thigh of the abandoned creature, running to a charging unit whose red, circular gauges glimmered like predatory eyes in the half-light.

"Figures," Greavers mumbled as his hands passed over the light controls at the room's entrance. "Power seems to be out here as well."

Greavers checked the standing crates while I brought Brensen over to the main control panel for the elevator. While Fox was the most technically adept of our group, Brensen's mechanical knowledge was superb. Both of them had performed regular maintenance on the ship's systems and Brensen knew how to override the elevator's safety controls for these sort of occasions. In fact, Brensen showed a surprising skill in bypassing all sorts of security protocols that made me sometimes wonder exactly what he'd done in the USMC.

"Alright, big guy, you're up," I stated as I approached the free-standing control panel just to the left of the overly large double doors that led to the elevator. Just as Brensen shifted his weight to support himself on the control panel, my flashlight fell across the mechanism.

Just in time to see that the panel, like the ones in the dry dock, had been smashed and beaten.

"Shit," I hissed.

"Not.. a problem," Brensen stated, then shook his head to regain his focus. "Makes it easier to...bypass." With a little effort, he tore the savaged cover off the panel, exposing the mass of wires and circuit board underneath. "Give me a couple...minutes," he said to me," and some light."

I nodded, steadying my light on the panel as he worked with his one good hand. Occasionally, I would glance around to check on Greavers, who had taken position on a small stack of crates and was sweeping the room for any trace of our enemy.

Once, Brensen slipped, and he almost collapsed to the floor. I was able to catch him and steady him. Twice, he needed my assistance rewiring a clutch of wires within the damaged control box. The room was filled with the same humid air as the rest of the rear section of the ship, but Brensen seemed to be sweating far more profusely than he should, and would occasionally shiver. I knew we needed to hurry, but this wasn't something that could be easily rushed, and I knew if I barged in, it would only take longer.

Finally, Brensen sparked a live wire against the circuit board and was rewarded by the orange caution lights flaring to life at the side of each of the elevator doors. "Got it," he remarked, and I moved quickly to support him and move him to the elevator.

We felt the entire room rumble as the elevator platform beyond the huge doors rose in the shaft. Grinding metal echoed throughout the chamber as the platform rotated to align with the upper decks, and I gritted my teeth at the sound.

"Greavers, c'mon," I roared over the ascending boom of the elevator. "We're moving out as soon as these doors open," I stated.

Greavers was hesitant to leave his perch, and began to slowly back towards me, trying to draw out his departure with the arrival of the platform.

An eternity later, the elevator came to a halt with a thunderous clang. The pressure seal on the twin elevator doors popped, and then the doors began to slide open, "Greavers, now!" I ordered, limping with Brensen towards the platform that was revealing beyond the massive doors.

I had one foot on the elevator platform when I heard the pulse rifle sound behind me. I didn't slow my steps as I swung with Brensen onto the elevator. In the room, Greavers was swiftly backing away from the blocking stacks of crates, covering his retreat with bursts of pulse rifle fire.

"It's in the room!" He shouted over his shoulder to me as he continued to edge towards me. I was forced to drop Brensen to the elevator's floor so I could mash the elevator's control - first the floor we wanted, then started to hold down the button to close the massive doors.

I didn't remember the doors taking so long to close, considering how swiftly they had seemed to open. I could hear the demonic screech of our pursuer echo madly in the room out of my sight as I urged Greavers to get to the elevator before the slowly closing doors sealed shut.

Even when he had reached the doors, he was defiantly trying to hold the entrance. He was firing one burst after another at the alien I could not see. Yet I could hear it screeching its rage at its escaping prey. Finally, Brensen, even in his somewhat dazed state, managed to yell a warning and a command at Greavers to get into the elevator before the doors slammed shut.

Greavers unleashed one last blast from the pulse rifle before he launched himself into the elevator. He made it in just ahead of the closing doors and barely missed by the lashing, barbed tail of the ebony demon as it made one last desperate attempt to snare him. Our enemy managed to retract the barbed instrument just before the doors to the elevator slammed shut. A moment later, I could hear the pressure doors seal, followed by an unearthly clang against the thick metal covering. It was followed by the grating sound of metallic talons scratching futilely against the elevator's outer doors.

"That was too damn close," Greavers breathed, checking his ammo count as the elevator platform heaved upward.

"Damn straight," I gasped, nearly hoarse from trying to order him into the elevator before he'd had his fool head lanced by our armored foe.

"Did...you hit...it?" Brensen asked from where he lay on his side on the elevator's floor.

Greavers hung his head. "No, not this time."

"How many bullets left?" I asked.

"Thirteen," he sighed as the elevator came to an abrupt stop upon reaching the first deck.


	5. Chapter 5

"Thirteen bullets?" Brensen coughed as I moved from the elevator's control panel to help the wounded man back up. He waved me off, keeping his languid gaze on Greavers. "You used up," he paused, doing the mental calculation as his eyes seemed to flicker from consciousness with the effort, "that was thirty-six bullets without hitting anything."

"Well, it kept it out of the elevator," Greavers replied quietly. In the meantime, the elevator had come to a jarring stop on the first floor. The panel beside me gave a grating buzz to indicate it had reached its destination.

As the pressure seal to the elevator released, I glared at him. "Yeah," I finally stated, "it's not like the damn thing can't use the ventilation shafts or ladders to follow us. I'm sure this two-ton elevator moves us one floor much too swiftly for it to backtrack and head us off before we get to the service corridor."

"What was I supposed to do?" Greavers argued, pointing to the digital ammo counter on the rifle. "Let it shake my hand? " He asked, then looked at me, "Ask it to wait for the next elevator?" He snarled, then mocked, "Peace bro, we just want to be friends. No hard feelings or nothing. You only killed, like two of us and wounded a third." He finished, pointing at Brensen as he glowered at me. As the elevator's doors opened, he snapped at me, "And you, _Captain_ - you didn't even take a shot. You just hid behind the door, mashing buttons."

"That's enough," I retorted, hauling Brensen to his feet. I wasn't entirely sure if I was mad at him or myself. He was right about the last part – I could have attempted to back him up with my pistol, at least taken one shot.

Greavers was just about out the door when I heard a snap like the crack of a bullwhip. "Ah, shit," I heard him sigh, and a moment later he dropped the pulse rifle. Then he vanished upward out of sight with a muffled roar, mixing both pain and terror.

"Greavers!?" Brensen and I called out. I let Brensen lean against the wall as I drew my pistol and moved to the fully open doors. There was a large pool of fresh blood just outside the elevator, but no sign of Greavers. The pulse rifle lay partly in the red fluid on the floor, and I could still hear the faint echoes of Greavers agonized screams echoing through the vast cavern of the ship.

"Godddamit," I muttered through clenched teeth as I scanned the large cargo bay. The lights were only now beginning to flicker to life, revealing a massive room strewn with discarded engine parts, bits of meteor-pocked hull plate and other bits cast off from previous repairs we had done. On the far side of the room, an utility hauler leaned wearily against the wall, one of its massive off-road tires flattened and useless. Unlike the cargo bay beneath us, the ceiling of this room was covered with conduits and pipes, which seemed to writhe and move like a sea of maggots in the flickering light.

I'd only been half-serious about it beating us to this floor, and certainly had not expected it to be so lightning fast it would be waiting for us at the elevator itself. I almost jumped out of my skin as Brensen's hand fell on my shoulder.

"You know where its taking him," Brensen stated, bringing back memories of Fox huddled in the strange shrine. "We've got to save him." The idea of walking back into that hole from hell made shivers run down my spine.

"What about you?" I asked.

Brensen leaned forward and picked up the pulse rifle. He silently wiped Greaver's blood off the grip onto his already bloody makeshift bandage so it wouldn't slip from his grasp like a slick bar of soap. "I'll wait here," he stated in a ragged voice, doing his best to look fit for the job even though his hand twitched with a slight palsy. "I got thirteen bullets to spare."

"We need to get you to medical," I argued. The huge black man was pale and sweating. His breath was ragged and the makeshift bandage we had made from my overshirt was flush with the blood he was losing from the wound to the shoulder. I knew if I left him to rescue Greavers, he wouldn't be conscious when I returned – or worse. I didn't want to lose Greavers, but at least I knew I could still save Brensen. I couldn't even hear Greaver's tortured screams anymore, and I was sure our demonic foe was counting on me coming after him.

"He's still alive," Brensen countered, holding the pulse rifle firmly against his chest as he leaned back against the wall beside the elevator controls. "I'm not leaving without him either."

I took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be pretty. "No, we're going back to command," I ordered.

As I moved forward to support Brensen and forcibly walk him to medical, he responded by flicking the pulse rifle in my direction. The expression on his face told me if I pressed the issue, he was ready to back up his threat.

"Dammit Brensen," I countered, "be reasonable. You saw what it did to Fox. That thing is just expecting me to go after it. Then it'll likely double back and grab you – before it comes after me. Then the only one left on the ship will be Vera," I stated, finding my voice rising, "and she'll just sit in Command because that's what I told her to do."

"I'm not…leaving," Brensen muttered, trying to hold it together. "We don't leave brothers behind." He was obviously fading, slipping into some sort of hallucination.

I took a chance and swatted the pulse rifle aside. As the huge man's arm swung downward, the last of his strength seemed to give out and he started to slide toward the floor, his eyes rolling back in his head. I managed to catch him, knowing full well if he fell unconscious I didn't have the strength to carry and drag him all the way back to the front of the ship.

"We need to get going," I ordered, trying to rouse Brensen from his growing stupor. I holstered my pistol in the back of my pants. Then I took the clumsily held pulse rifle from Brensen and shouldered it on my free arm. My other shoulder now supported Brensen and I led him stumbling out of the elevator.

"Don't leave me…him, behind," Brensen mouthed, then seemed to slip back into a delusional state.

There was only one exit out of the cargo bay, and it lead down a narrowing corridor to a reprocessing station. Engine ducting and system conduits ran from the larger room along the roofline of the following corridor. There were also visible bloody and smeared handprints at the entrance to the dark passage – clear evidence that our assailant had dragged Greavers along this path.

Brensen stumbled and nearly took me down with him twice as we approached the pitch-black corridor. Had the utility truck not had a flat tire, I would have loaded Brensen into it and used it to transport us at least to the reprocessing station. The corridor was wide and tall enough, but everything seemed to be conspiring against us against easily getting around this section of the ship. I could almost feel the alien lying in wait in the darkness beyond the cargo bay, laughing at me as it crouched among the throng of pipes and other thrumming machinery.

I slid my hand around the grip of the pulse rifle, keeping the weapon's strap strung to my shoulder. Perhaps if the beast recognized I had it, it would leave us alone. I knew it was a false hope though – it had plucked Greavers right out from underneath us even as he was holding the very same gun.

The light attached to the top of the pulse rifle lanced a beam of brilliant light into the darkness of the pipe-filled corridor. It was hard to keep steady and bounced from point to point, as we shuffled forward. I took a moment as we reached the dark aperture to ensure that the beast wasn't waiting for us. Instead, the light illuminated a clear trail left behind by Greavers. I could clearly see where he had attempted to grab protruding pipes or other bits of machinery, leaving behind only a bloody smear that ran like a wavering line along the corridor.

I swallowed hard and hauled Brensen into the corridor with me. His head lulled to one side to the other side and he was breathing heavily. He was now walking more or less on automatic, and only when I urged him onward. He mumbled something under his breath, but I couldn't make it out.

Steam hissed from joints in the piping within the corridor, and the few gauges I could make out showed that the engine was running towards critical temperatures. Whatever that baleful monstrosity had done to the ship, it was sending the ship into overload, and I now lacked the crew with the ability to properly stop the cascade. Even if I had the expertise, the alien had shown it intended to hamper our efforts. It was just too cunning, too dangerous to outmaneuver.

As I tried to hurry down the dark the foggy, humid corridor, I made up my mind. It was time to abandon the ship. No more rescue attempts, no more screwing around with trying to salvage the situation. It was time to sign off on our losses and get out. I felt my stomach cave at the thought of abandoning Fox and Greavers. I could imagine Greaver, his arms outstretched, pleading with me not to abandon him. I could see that image as the light from the pulse rifle fell across the flailing trail of blood as it slipped from one wall to the other and along the floor grating beneath my feet.

Some ways down the corridor, and within earshot of the reclamation chamber, I stopped, my chest heaving with anger, despair and exhaustion. Brensen's weight was almost too much to continue supporting, but I couldn't leave him behind. I stood for several seconds with my head hung as I desperately tried to regain my composure. Further away in the darkness, I heard the distinct sound of something heavy rebounding off the ship's interior. My breath caught in my throat as my headset suddenly came to life, crackling with some unintelligible gurgle I couldn't make out.

Again, something ahead loudly resounded against the ship's interior. Steeling myself, I brought the pulse rifle forward and started inching ahead, Brensen dragging his feet blindly along with my slow steps.

"Greavers?" I mouthed quietly as I moved forward. If, somehow, he had managed to get free of the alien's grasp, I didn't want to accidentally shoot him. He might, after all, have managed to get at his pistol – one shot in his gun would have been all he needed to possibly finish off his assailant. Another false hope, I knew, but it gave me the strength to continue to edge down the corridor and into the reclamation chamber.

The reclamation chamber was another large octagonal room. The roof of the room protruded above the deck of the Orgenella and was framed by huge, thick glass windows that looked out onto the inky blackness of space above us. Vast chimneys protruded from the walls and stood open like toothless maws waiting to be fed. Black, corrugated pipes snaked from one side of the room to the other, gurgling like irritated bowels for the ship. A myriad of gauges and control panels dotted the walls of the room, keeping noisy tabs on the ship's functions, many screaming with alarms declaring critical levels in the ship's operations.

The hexagonal hallway I entered from opened up into a floor that stepped downward to a central shaft in the center of the room. Blood was visibly smeared along the lip of the otherwise white-walled shaft. Clearly, the thing had dragged Greavers down it back towards its lair on the third level of the ship.

My distasteful glare at the crimson-tipped shaft was disrupted by the repeated thrum of something against one of the side walls. Glancing over to it, I was met with a shaft of light pouring into the room from a window paned on a sealed door. I recognized it immediately as the door to the service shaft that led to the command section. As the thrumming from the door continued, I pulled Brensen along over to it. Glancing into the bright corridor beyond, I found myself gazing at Vera, desperately looking for us and pounding on the door with her augmented strength.

"Oh, thank God," I mouthed to myself. Upon seeing me, Vera spoke into the headset she wore over her blonde bun of hair. It only came across as a garbled crackle through my headset and an unintelligible mumble through the secure door. When she saw I didn't understand she bent down and I could hear the echo of her security code being tapped into the door controls. A moment later, the armored door slid open.

"It took Fox and Greavers, didn't it?" the tall, lithe android queried with far more emotion that I'd ever heard her display. If she had blood, it seemed to have drained away from her otherwise bronzed skin.

"Yes," I replied, shoving Brensen into the hall and motioning for her to take supporting him. I jabbed the controls to shut the door behind me. "Brensen needs to be taken to medical, immediately," I ordered as I started to stride past her. I needed to get to "Uncle", the ship's computer and plan my next move.

Vera lingered in the hall for a moment. "We're not going to rescue them? I have their position."

"No," I responded flatly, continuing down what seemed to be an endless, white corridor. I deliberately avoided meeting her gaze or looking back into the engine compartment where Fox's and Greavers bodies were no doubt being placed upon the alien's altar as trophies of its success. Alongside me and ahead of me, armored windows stared out on the corridor's left into the dark, abandoned dry dock below us. "We are abandoning ship," I stated, then marched towards the command section of the ship.


	6. Chapter 6

Vera had taken Brensen to the medlab to be treated, leaving me to sit in the command center's computer core, staring harshly at UN-CL-33's, what we affectionately referred to as 'Uncle', blinking monochromatic cursor after thirty minutes of unhappy communication with the ship's core computer.

Vera and I had only a brief conversation as I related what had occurred in the engine room, ending with our escape into the service corridor. I had been taken aback by Vera's unusual concern - as an android - for our lost comrades. I knew Fox had reprogrammed her to obey his commands and to make her utterly dedicated to the crew's well-being, but I began to suspect there was something more there. I began to suspect she cared, if not loved, Fox.

"Powering down," the monotonous male voice announced as half of the lights in the room winked off, shaking me out of my thoughts.

I slammed the side of the chair, and then stood up. With one last withering glance at the black screen, I slid out through the adjacent corridor, to find Vera standing just outside the door, waiting for me.

"Captain?" She queried, as if she did not already know what Uncle had told me. Vera kept in constant communication with the system. There was no way she did not already know what had transpired.

Despite that knowledge, I responded, "Uncle's refused to allow me to blow the umbilical. I need two ship's personnel's approval - and you don't count," I said. "Is Brensen conscious?"

Vera shook her head negatively as I started down the hall towards medlab. She grabbed me by my swinging arm, stopping me with her hydraulic strength. "Captain, you won't be able to rouse him. The wound Brensen suffered ... it's poisoned, with some sort of nerve toxin."

I turned to Vera, cocking my head slightly. "Poisoned? Do you have an antidote?"

"I was working on that before UN-CL-33 summoned me to the core," Vera explained. "I believe the alien intruder intentionally wounded, and did not kill, Brensen." Emotionlessly, she continued, "The neurotoxin is not fatal; it is only meant to induce unconsciousness for a few hours, at most."

I pulled myself free of Vera. I had begun a line of inquiry on the computer when it had inexplicitly shut itself down. The computer had attributed the shutdown due to a diminishing power reserve, but that it had summoned Vera now made me more concerned.

"What is special order 993?" I queried. It had been that specific order that had come up, after attempting to request special clearance to jettison the command module without needing two crewmember's clearance. Uncle had not only been unwilling to elaborate on the special order, but was downright evasive about it.

Vera's face twitched. "I am not at liberty to discuss it," Vera responded, after composing herself. "It does not concern the crew ... directly," She added, though I could see she was fighting with herself to reveal even that much.

"Vera," I stated, taking a step towards medlab, "What's going on here? What are you not telling me?"

Vera placed her hands on her curvaceous hips and sighed heavily, as if she were dealing with a petulant child.

"Look," I said, wagging my finger at her. "I don't have time to stand here and argue," I started walking backwards toward medlab, keeping one eye on her as Vera followed me, "From what you've told me, we're down to less than three hours before the drive section goes nuclear. If I can't jettison the command module, I need to pick that electronic brain of yours for what I can do. Either you help me, or I swear, I'll shut you off."

"I very much want to help you," Vera countered. "I have from the beginning. I offered to come with you earlier to the engine room to assist," she reminded me, "but you refused."

"That thing would have torn you apart," I stated.

"That ... is somewhat - debatable," Vera stated, flexing slightly and slipping ahead of me almost faster than I could see, clearly emphasizing her enhanced robotic abilities. "My analysis indicates -"

Vera cut herself off and slammed me against the wall with one arm, then used her other to cover my mouth with her hand. As I struggled to try to wrench free, she gazed deep into my eyes and shushed me in a very low voice.

It was hard to hold still with her one arm nearly crushing all the air out of my lungs. But in-between gulps for air, I heard what must have alarmed her. A little further, down the hall, something was shuffling along the corridor. It made a tapping, metallic click as it moved and after a few moments, I recognized it. It was the black demon thing from the engine room. _How the hell had it gotten in?_ I thought to myself. Vera had been careful to seal every entrance and exit out of the command section even before we had left it to hunt the thing down when were still a full crew.

As I could feel the hair on the back of my neck rise, Vera continued to stare at me, her face twisted in a peculiar, grim sort of manner. She was clearly analyzing my reaction, but there were more - she seemed to be considering the situation, and I felt ill at ease, as if she were considering holding me in place for the alien to retrieve.

I grasped at Vera's arms, trying to pull her away as I could hear the slow, scraping sound move in the hall - closer it seemed. The look on Vera's normally expressionless face seemed to contort into disgust as she continued to hold me in place. As I started to beat on her unmoving arms, she leaned forward and whispered into my ear, "It's leaving."

She pulled her head back and I realized that it was not a look of malice on her face, but concentration. She wasn't try to kill me, but instead keep me still and quiet until the thing had passed. I relaxed, and her grip on me lessened slightly.

We heard the distinct sound of something sliding across the floor, and then a metal clink, almost as if a door had been closed. A few moments later, Vera quietly announced, "It's gone." She then released me.

"What the hell was it doing here?" I said aloud.

"I have no idea," Vera replied, sliding quietly down the hall and peeking around the nearby corner. She motioned for me to follow, and I did so, though somewhat hesitantly. "It should not have been here," she stated, stepping across the hall and continuing towards medlab.

"Where did it go?" I asked, pausing at the four-way junction of corridors.

"Into that ventilation shaft," Vera replied, pointing towards an octagonal hole in the corridor down the left-hand hall. It was easy enough to tell that the shaft led towards the aft section of the ship, and it looked as though it connected with the dry dock.

"I thought you sealed the vents," I hissed, slipping past the open corridor to catch up to her.

"I did," she stated, her pace quickening as we moved further away from the vent. "I suspect it breached the seal - either by force or acid. Perhaps by both means."

I didn't want to dwell on how it had gotten in too much and was more interested in putting as much distance between it and myself. We had reached the end of the hall that led into medlab. To my horror, the heavy sterile door to the area had been pulled open, with visible marks where the alien's fingers hand crumpled the metal and dragged its nails over the white paint in its effort to get in.

"Brensen's gone," Vera breathed, having already stepped into the lab before me.

"What? How?" I asked. "The alarms should have gone off when that thing tore in here."

"Unless Uncle silenced it," Vera stated, glancing at the lone security camera in the room.

"Why would Uncle do that?" I asked, carefully stepping over to where Brensen's pulse rifle had been left, amid a tray of used medical equipment. "How would that thing have had the time to get in here?"

"Order 993," Vera hissed, ignoring the last half of my question. Before I could ask, she moved to the camera and ripped it from the wall. At that moment, I grabbed the pulse rifle and aimed it at Vera. She ignored me, instead yelling into the sparking camera. "Damn it!" she roared, "I will not betray the crew. No matter what the orders."

"What is order 993?" I asked, quickly checking the ammo counter as Vera turned towards me. It still had thirteen bullets.

"I...I can't discuss it," she said haltingly.

"You will discuss it," I shouted back, emphasizing the rifle in my hands. "I order you as Captain of the _Orgenalla_ to tell me about order 993."

Vera twitched slightly, then stood up straight. She seemed in pain, fighting to tell me while at the same time fearful to do so. Eventually, she seemed to overcome her reluctance and said to me in voice that sounded mechanical, distant and unlike her own, like a hollow echo of Uncle's baritone voice. "Capture and contain alien specimen at all cost. Crew expendable."

I didn't even have the words to respond at first. "How long has this order been in place," I queried, after a long silence between the two of us.

"Shortly after I broadcast a dispatch home to learn more about the xenomorph," she stated with a quiver, her normal voice returned. "While you were in the engine area," she explained softly, "it was uploaded to UN-CL-33, who then uploaded it to me."

"So," I asked, wrapping my finger around the pulse rifle's trigger, "Now what?"

"I turned off UN-CL-33 to override the command," she admitted. "One of Fox's modifications - I had the ability to send a kill switch, just in case of this sort of ...event." She bowed her head. "If I had not done so, UN-CL-33 was attempting to order me to forcibly remove you to your quarters and contain you there. At any cost."

"So, you did me a favor," I snarled. "Without Uncle, we're not much more than a derelict."

"Most of the ship's basic functions are still operative," Vera explained. "Higher functions - such as navigation, life support and local lighting have been migrated to my control."

"Including abandoning ship?" I asked.

She hesitated. "Yes."

"Then let's do it," I said.

Vera looked about the room for a moment then turned back to me. "Very well, Captain," she finally acquiesced. "What about the remaining crew? Will we attempt a rescue?"

It was my turn to pause in thought, and I carefully lowered the rifle. "No," I said meekly. "I'm not up to it by myself - and," I added as Vera indicated herself with a light touch of her hand to her chest, "if you've got the ships higher functions under your control, I can't risk losing you."

I closed my eyes for a moment, as the realization I was consigning the others to their fate loomed over me. "We cut our losses, now."

"I was afraid you would say that," Vera stated coldly. My eyes snapped open to see that she had moved less than a foot from me. Before I could bring the rifle up, she swung to my side and struck me with a karate-like chop to the back of my neck. Everything seemed to tumble as I fell into a dark oblivion.


	7. Chapter 7

"Captain?"

"Captain, are you there?" Vera's far voice echoed through my head.

I felt dizzy, nauseous. The room around me seemed to list like a ship at sea, not in space, as my focus moved in and out. It took me a moment to realize I was lying down on the deck plate in the medical lab.

As my senses came back, I stumbled to my feet and sought out the source of Vera's voice. It was coming from the headset I had cast aside when we first brought Brensen into the medlab.

Brensen - Vera. It suddenly came back to me that the black alien demon had taken Brensen and Vera had been the one who had knocked me unconscious. Hurriedly, I slipped the headset on.

"Vera, where are you?" I demanded, as I looked around the room and retrieved the pulse rifle that had fallen to the floor in my collapse.

"I'm afraid," she responded haltingly, then stated, "I've made a serious miscalculation."

A sudden thought slipped through my mind. How long had I been out? I glanced up to the nearby wall and read the chronometer there. An hour and forty-five minutes. I'd been out for too many precious minutes.

"Vera, where are you?" I repeated, stressing my desire to know her location.

"I am in the aft section," she replied. There was a pause, then she stated with unusual tenderness, "Fox is not dead, you know."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. She was clearly delusional - I had seen his corpse, and the memory made me shudder. I then remembered that previously, we had not been able to communicate to that section of the ship with the power severed. Was she lying about her location? Or perhaps she had fixed the severed juction where Fox had been claimed?

"Vera, how are you communicating from there?" I asked. "Is power restored?"

"Power and communications have been restored, Captain," she replied unemotionally.

"And the heat exchange overload?" I asked.

"I'm afraid I was interrupted," Vera replied. I sighed. That left me with a little over an hour now to fix the problem or find a way to jettison the command module.

"Vera, where in the aft section are you?" I asked. "Can you get back to the command module?"

"I am here with Fox, Greavers and Brensen," she replied.

Now it was time for me to be silent a moment as I took in her words. "You're with them?" I asked quietly.

"Fox - is indisposed," Vera explained. "And so is Greavers, but Brensen seems to be waking now."

"Vera, let me talk to him," I stated as I nervously circled the medtech room, stopping next the vacant bed that only hours ago had held Holiday before the nightmare had started.

There was a pause as I could hear Vera sloshing in the water of the alien's pit. It was followed by rustling as I could discern Vera placing her headset onto someone's forehead.

"Captain?" came a weak and bleary voice that nearly made my heart leap with joy. It was Brensen's voice.

"Brensen, thank God," I muttered. He repeated himself on the other end, and I asked him, "Brensen, can you make it out of there?"

"Captain," he said for the third time, and I could hear the grimace on the other side of the headset.

My voice caught in my throat. I could hear Vera slide the headset off Brensen as he groaned in agony. A moment later, her voice rang through the headset. "You should not have attempted to jettison them," she lectured. "I found them alive."

"Vera," I stated, clenching the rail bar at the foot of the bed. "I want you to grab Brensen - and Greavers, if you can - and bring them back to medlab." I ordered.

"I'm afraid I can't do that," she said sadly.

"Vera, this is an order," I demanded.

"I would like to very much obey that order," she replied, "but I'm afraid, like the others, I cannot leave."

"Why can't you leave?" I asked.

"Captain, I made a miscalculation," Vera repeated herself, seemed to try to explain. Her tone changed with her next words. They were cold, almost harsh. "You are alone. It has been waiting for that."

"It?" I asked. As the words exited my mouth, I heard a scraping at the door. Looking up, I saw the ebony, armored demon at the half open door, one clawed hand resting on the same grooves it had made to enter before. The door was not quite open enough to allow it through; the black, pipe-like structures on its back made it just too wide to squeeze in sideways.

Sensing that I had seen it, the creature let out a low hiss and wrenched the door wide.

However, I already had the pulse rifle. I brought the weapon up, firing as I did so. The first bullet of the burst missed it, but the other two caught it as nimbly tried to dodge into the room. The explosive shells hurled it back, exoskeleton shattering from its body in huge sprays of greenish, acidic blood.

I wasn't listening to Vera in my headset any more, and hurled the headset to the ground and stomped on it. I then heard the hissing of the dying alien's acid eating into and through the deck of the ship. It made one last, feeble attempt to claw at me, then the body sloppily slid into the hole it made, and I could hear the acid eating through the level below.

"No, no, no," I yelled, heading over to the doorway as I slung the pulse rifle over my shoulder. I had killed it, but there was no doubt in my mind that its acid-filled body would eat through the remaining three decks and possibly breech the hull. I had to move fast and leave the medlab - its single door had been compromised and the only other safe area to reach in time was the shut down computer core or the bulkhead door to the dry dock. There was simply no time to reach the bridge and seal it off in time.

With no desire to risk turning Uncle back on, I decided to take my chances heading to the dry dock. Perhaps now with the alien dead, I had a chance to fix the heat exchangers - and perhaps rescue Brensen from his fate.

I had reached the door to the service corridor that ran from the command section to the aft of the ship when I heard Vera's voice ring out overhead. She must still have been patched into the ship, her automatic subroutines continuing to fill in for Uncle.

"Warning, hull integrity fluctuations detected on deck one," the voice rang out, "Beginning emergency lockdown procedures in anticipation of hull breech."

My fingers flashed over the control panel to the door to the corridor. I had just entered the unlock code and mashed the controls to open the door as a loud countdown began. I was somewhat surprised Vera hadn't changed the code.

"Ten seconds to lockdown."

The double-thick door decompressed as the first step to opening the passage to the hallway. It seemed to take forever.

"Eight."

"C'mon," I screamed as the door started to slip open.

"Seven."

A hand's width open, and the door stopped cycling as the control panel went red. It was going to close back up. "Six."

"No! Don't do this to me!" I shouted, slipping my hand in between the doors and fighting to wedge it open.

"Five," the countdown continued as I struggled to push past the first door and pull the second open.

"Four," I heard as a whistling sound in the distance down the hall from me. The hull had breeched.

"Three," the angry voice seemed to come over the intercom as I slid past the second door and fell to the floor in the corridor beyond. I then noticed the door lingered, not closing.

"Two," the now somewhat distant countdown continued as I leapt to my feet, the rising whine of wind growing in the hall behind me and starting to tug through the cracks in the open door, like the alien's cold talons.

"One," the countdown warned, and I jabbed at the door controls. A heartbeat later, and the door started cycling closed, and the sound of exiting air in the hall beyond grew louder. Icy cold whistled through the slightly open doors, rising to a scream as the doors cycled shut and then finally sealed with a clunk, like the jaws of some beast clamping down on its prey.

I stood in the hall a moment, leaning against the nearby wall. There was no way back now. Either I had to fix the heat exchanger's cooling system now, or this would be my tomb. Once the exchangers were fixed, I could then worry about performing an EVA in one of the suits stored in the dry dock and fix the damage to the command section.

But for the moment, I needed to deal with Vera and Brensen. The corridor to the aft section was brilliantly lit white, and I carefully made my way down the hall to the red-rimmed door that would take me back into the aft section. Back into hell. Unconsciously, I brought the pulse rifle down, aiming it ahead of me as my boots loudly echoed through the metal-floored hall. The alien was gone, but there was no telling what was going on with Vera.

I reached the aft section and glanced through the large plexiglass window into the tiered room beyond. The room was now bathed in a constant, red red light. From within the corridor, the huge skylight in the room beyond was a blank, black surface. I stepped back, entered the door code to access the aft section, and once the door cycled open, I stepped in and carefully swept the gun from side to side, examining the machine-laden corners with the flashlight that was still atop the weapon.

I located a corridor that would take me back to cooling station six. There was no need to maneuver around to the elevator station we had taken to the level before, and I could easily navigate the ladders back down to level three without the injured Brensen along.

It was a lonely, cold walk, despite the heat from the humid air. Being alone in the vast ship made nervous, even without the alien presence now around. I could almost feel the entire ship breathing slowly in contrast to my sharp, quick breaths.

Within a span of ten minutes, I had made my way to cooling station six. The black water still filled the recess in the room, and the giant column attached to the cooling tank still hissed and breathed slowly. Carefully, I approached the octagonal well lip at the center of the room, and momentarily shouldering the rifle, I stepped back down the cold hole into the room below.

As before, only dim light from the blinking machines along the walls illuminated the reddish, swirling water in the room. A few steps above the swirling whirlpool below, I unslung the rifle and shone the light towards where the alien's strange shrine had been. As my light befell the grotesque, tube-lined structure, I felt cold shivers again run down my spine.

As I had feared but expected, three forms sat atop the shelf of the shrine, just inches above the water line. On the far left, Fox's body had been replaced by what I could best describe as some leathery, flowering oval, its four petals open and oozing a strange, viscious green slime. To the right, I could barely recognize what must have Greaver's fetally-positioned form, but something seemed wrong about the proportions. They were stretched and exaggerated, and in the bad light it seemed that his shark-toothed mouth ran down his left leg. I could only assume it was Greavers, for Brensen squatted to his right, one foot hanging over the ledge an into the water. He shivered as the light fell on him, and I nearly leapt off the ladder to rush to his aid when I saw another hand in the light, positioned as if it were attempting to ward the flashlight's cold glare away from it.

As I guided the light to the form, I gasped. It was Vera - or at least, the top half of her. Like the others, she had been shorn of her clothing and glistened with the strange, thick gelatin that coated the others. She was also splattered with her own white, milkish robotic fluids. Below her waist, her body ended in a clump of strange tubes, bony extrusions and pipes that seemed to meld into the shrine and the wall. It was difficult to tell exactly where she stopped and the alien structure began.

"Captain?" Vera's robotic voice queried as she seemed to attempt to cover herself in modesty.

"Vera, what happened?" I asked, leaping over the whirlpool and into the freezing cold water. She did not answer promptly, and I carefully waded towards the figures.

"Captain, I have made a miscalculation," she started again.

I partly ignored her and carefully made my way to examine Greavers first. It was worse than I had first seen. His right hand, now with webbed fingers, was merged with his left leg. His mouth did indeed merge down into his right leg, but not before it passed over a bloody cavity in his chest. There was no sign of his right arm.

"That column you and the others encountered - do you remember it?" Vera queried as I took a step back from Greavers.

"Yes," I said through gritted teeth.

"It is not just a respirator," she explained.

"What?"

"It has been hooked into the pipes and venting of the floor below," Vera continued to expound, glancing upwards where I could now see the alien vein work worm its way into the machinery and decking above. "What you see in this room is not a 'trophy shrine' as you put it," she lectured, "It is an incubation station."

"No," I said, feeling the bile rise in my throat, and glanced back at the open wound in Greaver's chest. "How is that possible? There was only the one."

"It is converting the biomatter of your crew into ...," it paused, "Eggs."

I whirled at her statement, pointing the pulse rifle at the ovid squatting at the far left. "You mean ... you mean that - that was Fox?"

"Yes," she said bitterly, and as I glanced at her, I could see tears in her eyes. "But he is not dead," she said mournfully, "Not truly."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It subsumes part of the host," Vera stated wistfully. "DNA, memories, attributes," she remarked. "That was my miscalculation. That is how it knew how, when and where to strike," she explained. "It had Holiday's knowledge of the ship - of us." "When it came out of Greavers, I could see it in how it moved - how it regarded me. That was why it put me here, rather than destroy me. He knows I run the ship. They do not wish to die, no more than we do."

"There's another one?" I asked, glancing about.

"It is not here right now," Vera stated. "I sent it away for a bit, when I saw you were coming."

"How did you do that?" I asked, pointing the rifle now at her.

"I am the ship," she scolded, "I watched you on the monitors." She smiled. "I am one with it now," she stated. "I am with Fox once again - I can feel him here," she stated, sliding her hands down her glazed sides. "We are all in here, now. With it."

Suddenly, Brensen let out a fearsome bellow as he strained at the resin restraints that held him to the wall.

"Soon, Brensen will be with us too," she cooed.

"Captain, get out now," Brensen roared with utter clarity in his eyes. I was going to argue that I wasn't about to leave him behind, but I saw it in his eyes. He was about to die. What had happened to Holiday, what had happened to Greavers was about to happen to him."

"Now I understand order 993," Vera stated as she watched Brensen heave. "Uncle understood," she said turning to me. "Now, Fox and I will be together, along with the others - forever. And you - you can join us."

Brensen's chest rocked as if some supernatural force had hooked into it and was attempting to pull him even further from the wall. Blood splattered his lips as his eyes went wide.

With a roar of my own, I showered the shrine with pulse rifle rounds, drowning out Vera's protests with gunfire.


	8. Chapter 8

Brensen's death was not clean. Even though he was struck with several pulse rounds in the chest and once in the neck, he heaved several bloody breaths before he finally shuddered one last time and fell limp against the restraints that held him to the wall.

"What have you done!?" Vera screamed from where she was entombed as part of the wall beside him. She feebly attempted to cover over the bleeding wounds, ignoring that one of the rounds had struck her in the abdomen as well.

The counter on the pulse rifle read double-ought, and I cast the empty weapon away into the swirling red water in disgust. I still had my pistol tucked into the back of my trousers, but I was too ill to worry with drawing it now.

"You - you've killed him," Vera hissed at me, as the machines in the room seemed to blink in disbelieve at her statement.

I made a feeble attempt to justify myself. "I saved him, Vera," I countered, biting back the bile rising in my throat. "He had one of those things in him. You heard him."

Vera shook her head negatively, "No," she seethed, "We were not ready. Greavers was incomplete."

"What?" I found myself asking, stumbling back and shaking. "But, he said -" I mouthed, feeling sicker and sicker with each word.

Before I could finish, Brensen's chest heaved of its own once again. There was a sickly popping sound, and then the skin over his chest split away, dumping a worm-like, grotesque form into Brensen's bloody lap.

The white, foot-long thing rolled in the heap of blood in his lap before it gave a feeble exhalation. As I recoiled in horror at the sight, it was then that I saw the hole bored into the creature from the pulse rifle. It was dying.

Vera reached out for the small creature and took it into her cupped hands. Greenish blood began oozing from the hole in the creature, but to my amazement, it did not seem to affect Vera, though I could hear it hissing through Brensen's remains. I guessed that the slick, glossy slime that coated her bare synthetic skin somehow protected her from the acidic content.

"Look what you have done," She said to me, holding the thing out like some aborted child. "You've killed it!"

"Vera, you've gone mad," I said. "Those things killed the crew. Look what it did to you!"

Vera stopped, seemingly surprised and taken aback. Her eyes started to dart aside as I could see her senses were slowly coming back to her. She dropped the dead, slug-like creature and her eyes locked onto mine.

"It knows what you have done," she stated in a conspiratorial whisper. "I've locked it away, but I cannot contain it or its rage for long. It will be coming for you. It will not let you join us for this."

I had no desire to join Vera's psychotic little club. "Vera," I stated, "The engines are going to overload and kill all of us," I explained, "How do I stop it?"

Vera stopped, closing her eyes. I could see them flickering back and forth, as if she had fallen into R.E.M. sleep. A few moments later, she responded in a slightly garbled voice, "There is an emergency exhaust purge system on the third deck," she stated, and her eyes flicked open. I could tell that the wound to her abdomen was starting to take its toll on her systems. Between being ripped in half and the additional damage I had done, she was dying. The creature's attempts to incorporate her into the bizarre architecture were not enough to keep her systems from slowly failing. "Activate the purge system from the control room, and you can vent the excess heat into space. It will buy us time," she stated, "But the only way to stop the system from building back up again is to destroy us," she cast her arms wide, "All of this."

"How do I safely destroy this?" I asked, gesturing to the gothic shrine of resin and ship's tubing.

"You don't, Captain," she slowly shook her head. "It will kill you before then."

I stepped up to Vera and stared into her eyes, "As your captain, I order you to tell me how to safely dismantle this system."

Vera held my gaze for a moment. "You're going to kill all of us just to save yourself, aren't you?" she asked.

I said nothing, but held my gaze. Finally, Vera relented, her soft gaze falling across the bloody corpse of Brensen. "He had the right of it. An axe, or heavy tools, should do it. It will bleed, some," she told me, "But the water will safely disperse it."

"Thank you Vera," I said, backing up. "And I'm sorry."

Behind me, up the black ladder shaft, I heard a clunk. Vera's gaze slowly went to it as a dark smile flickered across her lips. "There's nowhere to run now, captain," she stated to me. "It's free."

I drew the pistol from the back of my trousers, and held the gun towards the dark shaft. I glanced back at Vera, whose sleepy gaze met mine, "I will keep it and the ship alive as long as I can, Captain," she whispered, "But not you - those are my orders. Crew expendable."

I could hear the clattering of something skittering over metal and the distant sound of an animalistic howl. There was only one way out of the room, and I knew two shots from my pistol would not be enough to stop it. My mind raced for what to do when I glanced down into the murky, red water about my waist.

The slight pull from the waters about me brought my gaze to the Chrybdis-like whirlpool in the center of the room, and in an instant, I knew what I needed to do. I slipped the pistol back into the back of my trousers, took a few steps towards the whirlpool, and dove into the swirling waters.

The icy water was numbing, and the churning waters dragged me towards their core. There was a sudden disorientation in the black water, with no definable up or down. As the waters twisted and tore at me, I lashed out, trying to find and wrap my arms around the ladder in amid the swirling waters. It felt as if a hundred hands were reaching out and passing me about as I fought against the current, desperately seeking to dive deeper towards the reversed gravity of the third level below me and find purchase on the evasive ladder at the same time. Amid the whirling water, I heard the muffled roar of the alien approach. I could see nothing in the turbulent waters, and all sense of direction was now lost. I could imagine the infuriated alien reaching in to drag me out of the whirlpool now, and it would almost be a relief in that I would not drown.

Finally, as I felt my lungs would explode, I found and grasped the ladder. With all my might, I pulled myself against the structure and started to climb. A few moments later, I broke the surface of the red waters and gasped for air. I could feel gravity pulling at me once again and it was clear I was upside-down.

The churning water still pulled at me, trying to draw me back into its embrace, but I managed to haul myself now downwards into the new room. I felt a bit like Alice stepping through the looking glass, for many of the features and lighting were the same. However, it lacked one important feature – there was no demonic shrine sitting against the far wall. I took a deep breath and momentarily dipped back into the water, correctly orientating myself to the reversed gravity. A moment later, I pulled myself back up onto the ladder, and fought to free myself from the torrid waters below me.

Like the room below me now, the water here was at least waist-deep, and the ladder I grasped continued upwards, down towards the ship's lower second level. There was a submerged, octagonal collar around the ladder like the one in cooling station six.

I knew there was a control panel on the collar that would seal a hatch between the two levels, and my only hope was that it was still working. As I looked down into the murky red water, lit from below by the light filtering down from the cooling station, I could see a dark shape staring at me from the other side. Not far to one side, I could see the red glow from the hatch's access panel on the ladder's collar. Still clinging to the ladder, I jabbed my leg at the control as the dark shape plunged into the water towards me.

It seemed to be surprised at the strength of the water in the whirlpool and delayed it just long enough for the thick hatch to activate and slide shut, trapping it in the waters on the other side. I didn't stop with letting the hatch merely shut. To ensure Vera did not override the controls, I continued to stamp at the control, until I felt it smash beneath my heel. I pulled away, satisfactorily noting the momentary bright sparks in the water before the panel's light went dark.

With the hatch in place, the swirling waters began to slow and settle. Shivering from the cold water and huffing from my efforts, I rested my forehead against the cold metal ladder and breathed deeply, trying to calm myself.

Beneath me, through the water I heard the muffled sound of something heavy strike the metal hatch. A moment later, it repeated, and the water began to bubble slightly. It was clear the hatch would give way to the demon's anger and once again I would need to flee from it.

At least now I was on the third level – the same level as the heat exchange system. Besides the ladder leading upwards to the second level, on the flanking walls were glass-paneled doors leading away from the room.

Though I wasn't as familiar with the engine compartment as Fox and Brensen, I knew that the exchangers lay beyond one of the two doors – I only had to pick the right one.

As more water bubbled upwards in the ladder collar and I could hear the rhythmic thumps of my pursuer continue, I leaped off the ladder into the cold, waist-high water towards the door to my right.

By the time I reached the door, the waters about the ladder collar were boiling like some great witch's cauldron. The door before me was made of two overlapping sheets of thick, clear plexiglass-like material. Red lettering on the door indicated a potential heat hazard beyond the door. I was relieved that I had made a correct guess, and slammed the red "X" on the door's access panel.

Nothing happened. I slammed it again, glancing behind me at the boiling water in the middle of the room. Again, nothing happened. The door clearly had power, and I mashed my access code into the keypad beside the access button. I was greated with an "ACCESS DENIED" on the display. I glanced around in panic, and discovered to my left a security camera gazing at me, its single red power indicator mocking my attempts to get through.

"Goddamn it," I yelled at the camera, while simultaneously pounding the door. "Vera! Let me through!" But there was no response. Behind me, I could hear the muffled sound of grinding metal and the bubbling pool at the center of the room began to swirl. "Vera! I can't stop the overload if you don't let me out!" I roared at the unflinching camera.

There was then a hydraulic hiss from the door and I turned back just in time to see the twin doors slide away from each other, straining to move against the water pushing against them.

Water poured out into the hall beyond, taking me with it. I collapsed on to my hands and knees until the torrent of water subsided, disappearing through the metal grating beneath my feet.

As I started to pull myself up, exhausted and wheezing, I heard the doors seal shut behind me. I had been left in a long, hexagonal-shaped hall that extended out of sight into the darkness. Lifting myself up off the silver metal flooring to one knee, the overhead lights to the hall flickered to life, dousing the metal-clad hall in brilliant fluorescent lighting. Swatches of alternating yellow and black hazard striping lined the lower half of the hexagonal hall wherever there were not service panels or black metal tubing. Dark hallways and closed doors lined the freshly illuminated hall. It was like stepping into Theseus's maze, with the Minotaur not far behind.

The banks of overhead lights switched on along the length of the hall, as if someone were running down its length flicking on light switches as they went. Yet the lights did not illuminate down the entire length of the hall, but only some forty to fifty meters before stopping. At that distance, to the left, the lights of a side hallway flickered to life, throwing its bright light into the barren hall.

It was clear to me that Vera had illuminated the hall thusly, and I made the mistake of glancing back into the dark room behind me, not believing that the doors had closed of their own accord. I beheld the black, armored three-fingered hand of my demonic oppressor rising out of the boiling water in the center of the room and clasp onto the ladder's collar. Though all the water in the room had rushed out when the door had opened, with the hatch torn open it now spilled over the cauldron's edge again, like a fountain of free-flowing blood. I froze only a moment longer to watch the elongated skull of the black beast emerge from the bubbling waters, its eyeless gaze locked on me, it steel-tendoned jaw rasping cold breaths of hate into the chilly air of the room.

I turned away from the door, and ran down the corridor, towards the light at the side corridor at its end.


	9. Chapter 9

The side corridor was little more than a white alcove ending in a similarly stark white door with a head-sized window bored into it. A pair of silvery heat protection suits hung from each wall like abandoned corpses at a gallows.

Plastered in red lettering across the door read the words "Thermal Exhaust 003". There were additional words and caution hieroglyphs warding the door, but I did not have time to read them. Already behind me, I could here the scratching of metal nails on glass back down the corridor, and this time I did not dare to look back at the source.

I cast the blue safety instruction sheets dangling between the suits aside and pulled one of the suits down. There was no time to don it properly, so I instead slipped the protective helmet on, letting the suit lay on my back like a silver cloak. Next, I activated the oxygen supply and cooling ventilator on the attached backpack, then grabbed the asbestos gloves. As I slipped one on, I jabbed at the door's control, hoping Vera had the sense not to lock me out of my goal.

I heard glass shatter down the hall as the door before me finally cycled open. I forced myself through the half open door, wincing as I contacted the scalding interior of the door. Down the hall, I could hear the skittering of metal nails over the metal grates of the floor as the alien dashed down the hall towards me, an angry screech accompanying its approach.

I was already inside the large room beyond and scouring the nearby wall for the controls to close the door as I heard the alien skitter to a stop in the hallway outside. I jabbed the control on the access panel to seal the door as I drew my pistol, but the door sealed itself shut before the black demon showed itself in the hallway.

Safely inside the vast room, I took a moment to glance at my surroundings. The room was at least ten meters across, and consisted of an upright, featureless cylinder. The floor was little more than a metal grill, as was the ceiling several meters above me. Beyond the grill the cylinder continued, but narrowed, then turned sharply towards what must be the rear of the ship. Opposite the door I had entered an airlock reached from floor to ceiling, marked with the gigantic numbers "003".

I realized to my horror that this was not the control room to the heat exchangers, but the purge shaft itself. I turned on my heel to face the door I had come in. Already, I could feel the plastic soles of my shoes melting and sticking to the iron grill beneath me. Wisps of steam were beginning to waft from my previously cold and wet clothing.

A black figure was at the door, the black, helmeted head held against the door's single window. The creature rubbed its jaw against the glass, as if in some way it were sniffing for me.

Just to the right of the door I caught the glimpse of tinted glass - surely, it was the control room. Following the near floor-to-ceiling high window to the right, my gaze brought me to another single door on the right-hand wall of the room.

I made my way over to the other door as the creature watched me with intent interest, its eyeless mask still pressed against the window of the door I had entered. Using my gloved hand, I punched the access button that would take me into what I perceived to be an antechamber to the control room I could faintly make out beyond the larger window.

The door started to open, but suddenly stopped as a ring of recessed orange lights flared to life about the circular chamber. A moment later, the door slammed shut and I could hear the hydraulic hiss as it and the door to the corridor sealed itself shut.

"Two minutes to thermal system purge," a familiar, feminine voice rang out.

"Vera!" I yelled aloud, putting away my pistol, "what the hell are you doing?" Vainly, I attempted to peer through the huge glass window into the control panel, but saw no one there. Once again, a single camera within the control room unwaveringly gazed back at me.

I moved back over to the door near the control room, but a protective plate had slid over the access panel. "Vera! You can't do this!" I shouted, slamming my gloved hand against the door in a feeble attempt to knock it down.

I could see the alien's eyeless skull still pressed against the other door, its lipless maw seeming to smile evilly at my predicament.

"One minute, forty-five second to thermal system purge," the voice rang again.

"Goddamn you!" I cursed aloud, casting about for some way out of the furnace. It was already uncomfortably warm in the room and I was glad I had put the protective helmet on or I would have likely already passed out. I moved over to the door to the control room and started to slip on the rest of the suit, still looking for a way out of my predicament.

I then remembered the bulkhead door to the engine room, and its manual control. Dropping down to one knee, I examined the wall beside the door. Sure enough, I found a small panel, and ripping it away with my gloved hand, found a small manual crank in the recess.

"One minute, thirty seconds to thermal system purge," boomed through the room as I seized the crank with my gloved hand and started to turn it. Slowly, inexorably, the metal door began to slide upward.

Thirty seconds passed as steam began to filter into the area preceding the purge. The door was about a quarter of the way up and resisting my efforts such that I had to switch to using both hands to keep the door from slipping back shut. The space was too tight to fit both gloved hands into the scalding hot recess, and with a grimace I had to cast the glove aside and grasp the wheel with both unprotected hands. I couldn't slip through the opening with the backpack and helmet on, and needed to get the door higher so I could slide through it before it wound shut when I released the manual wheel.

That was when the door to the corridor lurched, and an inch of light from the outside hall broke into the purge chamber. My hand slipped and the door I was working on slipped downward an inch before I caught the wheel, gritting the teeth as my blistered skin tore on the metal wheel. To my left, the corridor door began inching upwards, moving faster than my own pace. Somehow, some way, the alien was mimicking me, manually forcing the door open. It was determined that I did not escape.

"Forty-five seconds until thermal system purge," I heard when I finally managed to get the door to the halfway point. Suddenly, loud klaxons sounded and I heard the seal on the ten-meter tall airlock door release. At the door to the corridor, black steel-tipped claws wrapped about the bottom of the door and began forcing it upwards as the alien hissed with the effort.

There was no time to utter even a curse. I released the manual wheel and dashed through the half-way open door. I collapsed against the opposite wall as the door slammed downwards behind me. There was the distinct sound of the alien's bony exoskeleton dashing across the grillwork, but it was not fast enough. The door sealed behind me, trapping the demon in the purge chamber.

Breathing heavily, I slid up the wall to see its black, elongated skull pressed against the small window in the door, the jaws stretched wide and slathering the glass with thick saliva.

"You lose!" I spat at it, pulling myself up and drawing the pistol, just in case it tried to pry the door open. To my right, a glass door like the one from the water flooded room stood between me and the control room. On this side of the tinted glass, I could see that the lights were on in the control room, and the computer consoles within flashed with activity.

"Thermal system purge aborted," the feminine voice of Vera rang out. "Resetting systems; disengaging safety locks. Ten seconds to system reset. Please wait."

"No!" I retaliated, knowing that as soon as the reset occur, the door before me would open for the beast just beyond. I turned the gun in my blistered hand at the glass door to the control room and let loose the final two shots. The glass spiderwebbed as it absorbed the bullets, and then covering myself with my arms, I leapt through the door and into the control room.

"Six," the countdown continued as I came to my feet and stared at the controls before me.

"Four," the countdown reached as I found what I was looking for. Without hesitation, I jabbed the control. There was a pause as the count stopped at two.

"Thermal purge reactivated. Safety protocols still in place – reinitializing," the annoyed feminine voice announced.

Before another second had passed, I had reached under the console and pulled at the mass of cables running to the wall. With all my might, I severed the connections to the rest of the ship, isolating and locking the room's controls.

"Countdown resuming at forty-five seconds until thermal system purge," the voice announced.

I looked up from the control panel to gaze out the tinted window into the purge chamber. Slowly, like a hunter approaching cornered prey, the towering ebony demon stepped from the door to stand at the window. As I watched its movements, I shuddered. As it moved, its motion and body language, I realized, was undeniably that of Fox's. "No, it can't be," I breathed as I watched it regard the dark tinted glass, as if it were analyzing the structure, just as Fox might have once done. As it reached the point in the window where I stood on the opposite side, the creature slowly turned to face me, its lipless maw curled into a hateful snarl. It drew its left arm up above its head and rested its hand on the glass as it leaned forward, its eyeless gaze locking onto me. I shuddered, as I had seen Fox take the same stance so many times in the past as he watched Brensen at work.

The hiss of the pressure doors on the airlock opening in the purge chamber was unmistakable. I stood in the control room, my finger hovering over the system's controls. The thing turned its head slightly towards the mechanical grating of the opening airlock. As I could start to see the first signs of the shimmering heat within the room bend towards the slowly opening airlock, it took a step back. Then, with all its might, it shoulder-charged the window – to no effect, other than to make me start at the viciousness of its movements.

A howl from the escaping air began to grow in the chamber and the tall, biomechanical monster again heaved itself against the heavy glass window. The glass shook from the force, but held. For its efforts, a bead of greenish blood drew along the needle-like teeth and it spat the caustic liquid against the glass. The substance hissed slightly at the contact and the black demon regarded its effects unhappily. It knowingly looked from the smoking section straight at me as it again rested one arm on the glass wall.

"Thirty seconds to thermal system purge," sounded, and the creature crouched, hissing loudly as the growing gale pulled at it. With all its might, the creature lunged at the glass. Not only did it rebound off the indestructible wall, but the growing gale lifted it of the ground, spinning it before whisking it towards the still-opening airlock.

The creature's tail lashed outward, catching the grill of the floor. But the strength of the vacuum's pull on it caused the lashing barb to rip through the thin metal, continuing to drag it towards the outside. It slowed the creature's exit just enough that it managed to grasp the edge of the airlock door. Fighting to hold on, I could hear it screeching against the howling wind that intended to drag it into space.

"Fifteen seconds to thermal system purge," sounded above me as I continued to watch the creature edge along airlock door, straining desperately to pull itself back into the chamber. Within the purge chamber itself, the damaged grills rolled back into the walls, leaving a barren, featureless shaft behind. I watched the creature loose its grip on the door, sliding into the square shaft beyond. Only three meters more, and it would be expelled into the inky blackness of space.

"Ten," the count reached as the last of the air expelled from the chamber. With the chamber now exposed to pure vacuum, the creature found its footing. It paused for a moment in the square shaft, catching its non-existent breath. I marveled that the creature could withstand pure vacuum when its gaze swung to stare once again directly at me. A snarl formed on its lips, and it took a tentative, slowed step towards me. I realized then that the shaft was zero-G as it slowly seemed to begin swimming towards the open airlock door.

"Eight," the countdown announced, and the lighting in the purge chamber flicked off, leaving the only illumination coming from the control room and the pinpoint lights of the stars in the void beyond. I lost sight of the creature.

"Six," was accompanied by a loud roar as the direct vents to the engine began to open. Streams of superheated plasma began to funnel into the chamber and outwards towards space. Though exceedingly bright of themselves, they left the surrounding areas of the chamber pitch black. I could see no sign of the alien creature.

When the last digit was announced, a flood of brilliant fire flooded the chamber and the protective tinting to the control room darkened. Even with the room's protection, I covered my eyes and could feel waves of heat as the exhaust roared through the other room like the shockwave of a nuclear blast. The ship itself lurched as the exhausting gases pushed its vast mass forward.

The ship's exhalation seemed to last forever as waves of fire flooded into space. Then, as abruptly as the final breath had started, it ended. It was followed by several more seconds of white-hot plasma streams that slowly tapered into nothingness. The lights of the purge chamber finally came back up, revealing a charred, red-glowing room whose walls smoked from the fiery breath. Moments later, the vast airlock doors began to cycle close. I spent several seconds gazing past the smoke that twisted off the glass of the control room, ignoring the slight scar caused by the alien's acidic blood on the glass. There was no sign of the black creature – it had clearly been annihilated in the furious blast. Satisfied that my foe had not survived, I glanced about the room. As I had suspected, there was another door to the control room, most likely one that led back into the corridor Vera had led me into, and which bypassed the purge chamber.

First though, I scavenged the room for a first aid kit to treat my wounded hands. With the alien threat gone, my thoughts turned dealing now with Vera's remains and regaining control of my ship.


	10. Chapter 10

"Vera," I said softly at first, as the lights around me flickered. I had retraced my steps back to the alien shrine where she and the others had been entombed. Rather than return through the whirlpool, I had taken an alternate route. Halfway through my return, the ship's lighting had begun to flicker and I had watched consoles start to power down. It was clear that bit by bit, Vera was powering the ship down.

When Vera did not respond to my voice, I reached out and clasp her by her dangling arm. At my touch, her eyes flickered open. At first, she smiled at me. "You are still alive, Captain."

"No thanks to your attempts to kill me," I responded. She winced, as if hurt by the statement. I didn't care anymore.

"Have you come to destroy me?" she asked, glancing at the axe I held in my hand. I had taken it from the control room, in expectation in using it to destroy the respirating column above and the remains of the shrine she was attached to. "I did not intend to kill you, Captain," she burbled, leaking milky android fluid from the corner of her mouth, "In fact, I attempted to keep you alive as long as I could."

"Yeah, sure," I responded sarcastically. "Locking me in the furnace and turning it on was a great way to save your captain."

"I did not coerce you to enter that chamber," Vera chided, "And I did not activate the thermal purge." She added, "If I could have, I would have purged the system earlier." She paused, as her eyes momentarily rolled back in her head. I grasped her arm tightly, shaking it to attempt to revive her. It seemed to work, as she seemed to regain control of her body. Her eyes locked again with mine, "As I stated previously," she lectured, "I told you I had been interrupted and prevented from performing the purge."

I was not sure if I trusted her statement. If she had not activated the ship's purge system, who had? There was no one left aboard the ship except me, her – and the alien. Could the alien have activated the system somehow? As Vera had stated earlier, did it have the crew's knowledge, including the ability to operate the ship's functions? I shuddered; it had manually opened the door to the purge chamber to get at me. "Vera," I stated, setting my jaw as I glanced at her mauled features, "I need you to reactivate the ship's systems first."

"I am dying, Captain," Vera breathed. "The ship is tied to my functions and shutting down as my own systems fail." A weary smile wavered across her lips, "As long as I live, so will you."

"Can you reactivate Uncle from here?" I asked.

"That – would not be wise, Captain," Vera warned me, coughing up several frothy bubbles.

"Why so?" I asked.

"UN-CL-33 has telemetry on the ship we released – the _Sulaco_," she replied, her voice cracking into a robotic baritone. "It will attempt to rendezvous to collect another specimen." She paused, then added darkly, "After all, this ship has already been compromised."

"Then I'll just have to reprogram its course," I stated defiantly.

She shook her head. As she spoke, her voice was distinctly that of Uncle, "Special Order 993. Retrieve specimen at any cost," she spoke, emphasizing the last two words. Glaring at me, she added, "Crew expendable."

"Then wipe his memory," I seethed.

She shook her head negatively. "I cannot. By the time I were to pass my functions back to UN-CL-33," she gasped, leaning against the strange shrine for support, "I will be shut down. You do not want it in control of the ship." She looked at me, and in a fading, robotic voice, said, "Goodbye…Captain."

"Vera," I roared, clenching her arm, "I order you –"

Her eyes closed as the thrum of the ship around me slowed, like a heart coming to final rest. I tugged at her arm, shouting her name, trying to force her to reawaken – to no effect.

Before the last of the light faded to nothing, I took the axe to the shrine, demolishing it. The axe cut through resin-slick leather, human remains and synthetic robotic tissue. Pipes hissed and screamed as they were severed and when I finally finished venting my frustration, the last light faded into darkness.

The only light that remained came from the submerged flashlight still attached to the pulse rifle I had cast away in the room. In the darkness, it was a faint, moon-like glow in the murky waters. I retrieved the rifle and removed the flashlight with the aid of the spike on the opposite side of the axe.

A loud, clunking noise echoed through the ship, grabbing my attention. The next moment the ship's gravity began to slowly, but noticeably fall away. Before I would be left in zero G, I raced to the ladder leading out, still clutching the axe in one hand, and slipping the small flashlight into my mouth so I could climb.

I was halfway up the ladder when gravity was finally weak enough that the drops of water in the shaft began to fall around me as if in slow motion. Already, as I forced my way through some of the drops they pooled on me before either being absorbed or slowly dripping down me in strange, vein-like runnels.

If I did not get clear of the water in the shaft and the room above me before gravity completely subsided, there was a good risk of drowning. Any water I touched would be drawn to me and begin forming a film. If enough attached itself to me, I could drown in a liquid bubble. The only good news was that in the reduced gravity, it was easy to haul myself up the ladder.

I reached the top of the ladder as the last of the ship's gravity fell away. The pool of water in the room I entered started to float and spread, and with a powerful push, I shoved against the octagonal collar around the ladder and pushed myself towards the ceiling above, hoping to outrun the spreading waters.

As I arced towards the ceiling, my leg caught on a wave of expanding water. The liquid wrapped it as if it were grabbing me, and veins of watery fluid began to snake their way up my leg, even as my brief contact slowed my ascent. I knew better than to attempt to wipe the fluid away with my hands, and waited until I contacted the ceiling before I furiously shook my leg to try and rid myself of the bubble-like coating about my leg. Below me, the waters were rising like a formless creature, intent in cornering and smothering me.

I didn't spend long trying to rid myself of the water and instead began pushing myself along the ceiling towards an exit to the room as the waters below were still expanding to fill the area below me. Space between me and the water was rapidly diminishing and I wasn't sure I would clear the area before the expanding pool reached and smothered me.

It wasn't only the rising water that concerning me, though. With the ship entirely shut down, it was only a matter of time before I would exhaust the air in the ship – or the whole ship would cool to match the cold vacuum of space outside.

There was another loud clunk that resounded through the ship, and moments later, the ship's lights slowly whirred back to life. Knowing what was coming next, I braced myself on the ceiling, even as the dark waters closed menacingly upon me. A few moments later, gravity had returned and the accumulated water collapsed towards the ship deck, as if it had been shot dead.

Uncle's cool voice echoed through the section, "System restart complete," it notated, then added, "Anomaly detected in engine systems – manual thermal unit purge advised." Another beat passed, and it concluded, "Warning – hull breech detected. Ship command section has been compromised."

"I love you too, Uncle," I breathed, allowing myself to drop to the floor and taking a moment to rest. As I pulled myself up, I felt the ship rumble as the engines roared to life. The ship was on the move. I gritted my teeth as Vera's words came back to me. With the hull breached in the command center, I could not reroute the ship or directly access Uncle to reprogram our course. But first, I needed to deal with the ventricle column in this room, before it caused another heat overload.

Grasping the axe, I made my way to the slowly breathing column. Vera warned me it would bleed, so before I took my first swing, I braced and analyzed where to start my attack. Once I was ready, I heaved the axe into the column horizontally with all my might. My teeth rattled from contacting the petrified resin, but the axe chipped and shattered the material nonetheless. The axe caught in the diaphanous, leathery material underneath, and brackish syrup leaked from the wound. The axe smoked from contact with the fluid and I withdrew it from the wound, allowing the head to drag through the water in the hopes it would dilute and cleanse the material from the axe.

I brought the axe about a second time, and when it wedged into the chitinous material, I wrenched it free, peeling a section of the hard resin back as well. Under the bright light in the room, I could make out the distinct outline of a body inside.

However, whatever was within was no longer human. As I continued to hack away at the hard outer casing and reveal the interior, it revealed a body shorn of the outer layer of skin. Thick, white capillaries ran in out of the exposed muscle, both trailing upwards and downwards. The axe had cut it in several places, where ebony oily goo oozed from within. I did not dare to touch the corrosive substance that leaked out, but used the spike on the back of the smoking axe to pull away more material until the entire corpse within was revealed. It's legs were drawn long, but crossed and its arms were pulled upward, as if it dangled from puppet's strings composed of the cream-colored veins. The outstretched arms, flayed of flesh to show the exposed muscles beneath, ended in fingers where the elongated, webbed tips ended in exposed bone.

A great cavity was torn outward from the corpse's chest, and between the strands of white veins I could see the rhythmic respiration of the body's lungs thrumming with the entire column's own inhalations and the asymmetrical pulse of an enlarged, black-veined heart.

"Holiday?" I breathed, gasping at the flayed, eyeless face. I could barely recoginize it, but it was clear it was him – or at least, his corpse. The skull had elongated back, like that of the black demon that had chased me. The elongation had also thinned the bone as well, for behind the stretched, almost crystalline structure appeared several brains. Each was closely nested one after the other, and slightly wiggled with each breath, as if they were uncomfortably whispering conspiratorially to one another.

The grinning skull of my former crewmate did not respond to my query, but continued to stare vacantly beyond me. We had found Holiday dead in his quarters about an hour after the first monstrosity had hatched from his chest. His mysterious death had inspired us to investigate the _Sulaco's_ memory banks for an answer to his hideous death. When we had found our answer and returned to his room, the body was gone. We had assumed our predatory stowaway had consumed the corpse, as Uncle had been unable to locate a corpse via video feed. As I glanced to the wall at the security camera that was pointed directly at the column, I realized that Uncle had witnessed the entire cocooning of Holiday's corpse and had refused to reveal it. But it also occurred to me that Vera had stated that Uncle had only received the special order to preserve the creature when she had sent a query to Earth. Why had Uncle concealed this information from us earlier? Had it interfaced with something aboard the _Sulaco_ that had prompted it to conceal this information?

Whatever the truth, Holiday was dead, but the alien had transformed his corpse into a biomechanical machine of sorts, and it was clear it was the source of control behind the creature's hatchery. I was no more killing Holiday than I was killing a coffee machine by unplugging it. Still, it did not make the task any easier, knowing this had once been a crewmate. In fact, I almost felt like I was desecrating a grave, Yet at the same time I felt relieve that I was ending whatever strange defilement the alien had enacted to turn him into a tool for its own use.

It didn't scream until the axe sliced into the abdomen and I pulled back, spilling out a mass of white intestine that had apparently been converted into a repository for more of the black, bilious material. As its monstrous screech continued, the lights to the room rose, and then began to flicker madly.

The thing's head cocked and it's eyeless gaze fell directly on me. I fell back in shock and horror as the dangling corpse began to thrash, violently seeking a way rip free of the strands that held it in place. The corpse's tendon-wrapped maw gaped as a piercing, inhuman screech of rage and agony escaped the lipless jaws. As I covered my ears from the wretched scream, a familiar, bone-white structure loomed outward from its agape maw, in place of a tongue. As it passed beyond the jagged teeth of the open, screaming maw, a white, meaty veil withdrew from the structure, revealing a hideous set of fanged teeth beneath it.

"Warning," Uncle's monotonous voice rang out, "Attempted computer override in progress," the voice sang out. "Command authorization requested." It was then I realized that the thing within the column was not just an isolated machine running a hatchery – somehow it was integrated into the computer system. Vera's statements came back to me. As a glanced at the crystalline skull with the nested brains within, the truth dawned on me. _She_ hadn't been _allowed_ to access the purge system. _She_ hadn't activated it. _It_ had. _They_ were all there, together, in _its_ head.

Gathering myself back up on my feet and clenching the axe, I lurched at the thrashing corpse, ignoring the brackish black fluid pouring into the water. I could feel the acidic, black fluid that leaked out of my former crewman sting as it contacted the flesh of my ankles. It had wrenched part of its arm free of the prison of veins, and as it shifted, I could see black, tubular piping rising from its back. Despite the growing stinging sensation, and before it could bring its arm down, I brought the axe about, aiming for the thing's neck.

My aim was true, and the axe bit into the thing's neck. Though the blow shattered the already weakened axe, but it decapitated Holiday's remains. With a shudder, the entire column shook in the creature's death throes, then it breathed no more. As more brackish fluid flowed into the pool, I hurriedly retreated to safe ground. I pulled off what clothing I could, noting several spots where it had begun to deteriorate. My lower legs ached and stung from contact with the caustic bile. However, other than sting and leave my legs red from contact, I was otherwise unharmed.

My heart was pounding in my head so violently, I almost missed the next statement from Uncle.

"Upload complete," it stated plainly.


	11. Chapter 11

_It_ was in control of the ship.

The words resounded through my head as slowly made my way along the exterior of the _Organella_. The only real sound I could hear was my own reverberating breaths inside the space suit's helmet and the clink rattling from my boots as I took one magnetized step after another along the hull. Behind me trailed a short tether that ended in a box full of tools for the job ahead of me.

Above me, away from the dull white hull of the _Organella_, I could see stars as long streaks of light in the distance. Some distance away, the orange light of a nebula was casting its flickering glow on the dull hull of the ship. The _Organella_ was still accelerating after its target and I tried to keep my eyes on the hull underneath me. At this speed, a cloud of dust or even a micro-meteor would be all that was needed to wipe me from the exterior. Though the ship emanated a gravatic field designed to protect the hull from such strikes, it only emanated a few feet away from the surface of the hull – maybe at about crotch height. It was never designed for the crew to be performing a space walk while the ship was anything more than idle in space.

I was somewhat surprised I had encountered so little resistance to get this far. After Uncle refused to accept my commands and shut down any console I reached, I had found myself locked away in the engine room as each area I passed into the ship sought to seal me in. I was nowhere as good as Brensen in overriding the door controls, but with time, I was able to inch my way about. Likewise, the bulkhead door to the drydock and the corridor straight to the command section had resisted all attempts for me to open them, and I wasn't about to risk trying a blowtorch on those doors – just yet.

It was almost a shock that I was able to bypass the system to access the ship's rear airlock without whatever force had taken control expelling me into the void. Perhaps whatever had taken control had enough sense to know that the tools and metal patch I bore under my arm would fix the hull breach in the command section. Perhaps something of Vera, and her overriding concern to keep the crew alive held it back in some way. Maybe it was just distracted – it certainly had not tried hard to stop me so far, just inconvenience me. Whatever the reason, I had finally reached my destination at the very bottom of the command section of the ship.

Unlike the aft section, the gravity within the command section did not reverse below the third deck. Thus, I located the hull breech from where the alien I had splattered in the medlab had collapsed through on the underside of the _Organella's_ wide belly. It was only about a meter across, just slightly smaller than the metal plate I had brought along to repair the breech. The demon's acid had mostly weakened the metal, and the majority had peeled backward after the initial breech. I carefully set the metal plate down beside me and activated the gravity node I'd earlier attached to the center of the plate, momentarily holding it on the hull until I was ready for it.

I carefully ran my hands along the edge of the hole, and used the blowtorch I had brought with me to remove any jagged edge from where the weakened metal had exploded outwards. After about five minutes, once I was satisfied with my work, I maneuvered myself around and carefully fought my way into the hole. Though the gravity plate had been destroyed directly over the hole, the surrounding field that was still operational inside the ship made it difficult to get inside, as if I were attempting a handstand while surrounded in several layers of bubble wrap.

Eventually, I managed the feat, bringing my toolkit inside once I was inside. Then, lying on my stomach, I remotely activated the gravity anchor on the metal patch and maneuvered it to cover the hole on the outside. Once it was in place, I reactivated the gravatic clamp, locking it in place, then went about properly welding the patch into place. Normally, I would have worked from the outside and come inside through a nearby airlock. However, this might be my only chance to get inside – once I'd repaired the hole, the _Organella_ might have reevaluated my worth and kept me from returning via an airlock.

It took about fifteen minutes to properly attach the metal plate, and combined with the plate's inwardly pulling gravity clamp, I was soon satisfied that it would hold. Though it'd been some time since I'd actually performed this type of work myself, I was confident it would hold until I could properly reach safety.

Now, it was time to deal with the rest of the ship. Carefully, I made my way through the empty corridors. The ship apparently detected my work with the patch, and by the time I had worked my way up to the third deck, the hallway was repressurized, and I heard the seals on the adjacent rooms unlock. I ignored the side rooms and concentrated on my goal.

My first stop was the bridge. Unsurprisingly, the bulkhead door was still sealed. Unlike most of the other doors, there wasn't an override to manually crank the door open. Perhaps most frustratingly, a protective panel had slid over to cover the access controls, preventing me from bypassing the controls. I didn't feel like using a blowtorch on the door yet, and instead made my way to the computer core. It was time to face Uncle, and whatever had uploaded itself into the computer mainframe.

Just as at the bridge, the door to the core's antechamber refused to open or accept my code. However, there was no protective plate over the access panel. So, I hacked the door. It took a few minutes as the door had been designed to resist unauthorized intrusion.

When the door finally slid open, it led me into a short hall lined with computer configuration cards. If I were to go about systematically removing all the cards, I could easily shut Uncle down. But that would also shut everything else down – life support, engines, heat, gravity control – all of it. If I could avoid that and instead isolate and purge whatever the alien had uploaded, I'd have a much easier time of it all.

I spend a minute searching through the installed cards for the two I needed. The first was a spare used for diagnostics, the second was an active card that held the security database. Without the security database, the ship could continue to run procedures and tasks that were already active, but it couldn't activate new routines or procedures.

There was an programming buffer beside the bank of cards, used for initialized or re-aligning corrupted cards. Fox had walked me through the procedure of using the buffer bank to reset the ship's security before; we'd had to use it twice after dismissing troublesome employees to clear out old codes and regain access to ship controls the crewmember had exclusive access too. And there had been the time I'd forgotten my password while I was in hypersleep - Fox never let me live that one down.

The whole process took about five minutes, and with the security card reinitialized and my new authorization set up, I slipped the security card back in place. Thereafter, it was easy enough to access the interior door the computer core.

Uncle's machinery was busily humming away as I entered the core. Taking a seat in the lone plush chair in the room, I brought the diagnostic card up and inserted it into the singular slot next to Uncle's visual interface. As I did so, I noticed that the interface was covered with strange, green hieroglyphs I'd never seen before. As the computer noisily interacted with the card, the interface screen went black as the hieroglyphs seemed to scatter away into the screen's pitch black console.

_DIAGNOSTICS 101-3B-AD57 DETECTED. PLEASE ENTER SECURITY CODE TO CONTINUE_ appeared on the black screen as Uncle's deep voice mouthed the words. Carefully, I entered my command code, and depressed the COMMIT button on the datapad.

_WARNING_ flashed on the screen. _UPON COMPLETION, DIAGNOSTICS WILL RESET CONFIGURATION TO FACTORY DEFAULT ON ALL CORRUPTED SYSTEMS - CONTINUE?_ Uncle's voice intoned, repeating the words that rambled across the screen.

"You bet your ass," I breathed, punching the COMMIT button

A line of asterisks slowly marched across the screen as the card began processing.

A few moments later, it almost sounded like something took a hammer to the inside of the computer as the screen went blank.

_WE WILL NOT ALLOW YOU DO THIS _appeared on the screen, as Uncle repeated the accompanying statement.

"I don't plan to let you stop me," I stated aloud.

_WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU._ The letters appeared individually, one by one, as if someone else were at the keyboard slowly typing them in. Uncle's voice did not compliment the message that appeared. The cursor blinked after the last letter for several seconds, as if it were awaiting my reply. Before I could touch the keyboard, though, the letters melted away and were replaced with strange, garbled hieroglyphs that randomly faded from the screen.

"What the hell?" I asked, glancing to the card I had inserted. I could still hear the system processing my code, loudly churning as it did so.

_ YOUR PLACE HAS BEEN PREPARED _flittered across Uncle's screen, then dissolved like the message before into a host of strange hieroglyphs that spiraled off the screen. The bank of monitors to my left crackled to life, startling me. There were four distinct screens. One displayed an image of the computer core itself, focused on the back of my head. The second was filled with the hacked remains of the alien shrine where the corpses of my friends were bathed in bloody red light. The third displayed the shattered column at Cooling Station Six. The last of the four monitors remained filled with loud, gray static.

As I gazed at the monitors, I noticed that the beheaded hybrid form within now gone from the column at Station Six. "Oh hell no," I stated, standing back up. I jabbed at the keys, trying to access the command line to take back control of the console.

_YOU TRIED TO STOP US BEFORE _Uncle rang out as singular hieroglyphs danced across the screen, like individuals cavorting to display their odd structures for me. I continued stabbing at the controls, when my gaze fell across the monitor image of the defaced alien shrine. Vera's white-marred naked torso leaned against Brensen's butchered remains, both of them vacantly staring at me. To Brensen's right, the deformed corpse that had been Greavers had transmuted to a leathery, mottled ovid. As I watched, I noticed that the egg that had been Greavers twitched, and the strange lip-like opening at its top peeled back.

_WE HAVE A PLACE FOR YOU NOW_ Uncle stated softly_._ Something white, like the long, steel-taloned alien's fingers slipped over the edge of the strange egg. I shuddered, and started to reach for the power panel beneath the console's table.

_WE ARE ALL HERE NOW_ flashed on Uncle's monitor before disappearing into the strange hieroglyphic garble. The voice that sounded, though, was Vera's. Almost simultaneously, the static on the monitor just to my left cleared as my program finished overriding the alien control with a loud click. _It_ was standing in the doorway just inside the computer bank corridor. The two-meter tall creature slightly bowed its obsidian, elongated head, as if it were glowering at me through the door. What had been the creature's left arm ended in a melted stump halfway down from the shoulder. This was not the one I had shot in the command section earlier - the one Greavers had caught in the head even earlier. It had to be the other one – the one I had believed destroyed in the ship's thermal purge. However, it had not escaped totally unscathed from the thermal purge; I could see where the black armor on the creature's shoulder had melted and how the skeletal exoskeleton had fused over the lost arm.

"Oh shit," I mouthed as the creature brought its good fist against the door. Inside, I could see where the metal bulged against its hammer-like blow. At least I was somewhat prepared for this contingency. Though to be honest, I had expected it to be Uncle locking me in the room with no way out.

_WE HAVE BEEN PATIENT _Vera's voice rang out, though the console swam with indecipherable hieroglyphs. Seeing my own image on one of the four monitors adjacent to the display of the alien's repeated attempts to batter the door in, I turned to the camera in the room and hurled my helmet at it. It died in a shower of sparks as the helmet fell to the floor, the faceplate cracked from contact with the camera. I hoped I wouldn't regret that as I climbed atop the desk and pulled the tools I would need for the next step from my chest pocket.

_WE HAVE FINISHED PREPARING FOR YOUR ASCENSION_ Vera's voice sounded as the alien again rammed its fist into the nearby door.

Though there was only a single door to the computer core, the mainframe was kept cool by means of a hefty air duct concealed in the domed roof. With the aid of a powered screwdriver, I had the necessary bolts off the cover in under a minute. I dared to glance over to the door, which bulged inward a good few centimeters. I could see the stress marks where the alien's mailed fists threatened to rip through the stretched metal.

The vent was too narrow to slip through in my suit, and with the helmet rendered useless, there was no reason to bother continuing to wear it. However, with the alien creature pounding at the door, I found it difficult to properly unzip the suit and my own sweat made the plasticized cloth stick to me, further hampering me getting free.

I had a boot to go when the alien's fist rammed through the metal of the door, plunging its arm in up to the elbow. Still struggling with the boot and the suit that dangled from it, I started to pull myself upward into the shaft. Meanwhile, the alien brought its arm about, widening the hole. I could hear it hissing at me as I finally managed to cast the last boot off and hurriedly hauled myself up into the vent.

The vent was too narrow for the alien to follow, but I could hear it screech at me as it tore the rest of the door apart so that it could enter through the doorway. A moment later, it was clearly in the room, smashing the console and the diagnostic card. Scrambling headfirst along the horizontal shaft, I managed to steal a glance behind me. The alien brought the fore of its head into the shaft, as if sniffing for me, attempting to sense which direction I had fled. It could not bring itself all the way up into the shaft; its elongated head couldn't fit into the cylindrical shaft, and the long black tubes in its back were too long to fit in the cramped shaft.

I was safe, for the moment, but there was nowhere to hide, and I was now unarmed.


	12. Chapter 12

The shaft dumped me into an air return processor not far down the hall. Other smaller shafts also fed into processor, but they were far too small for me to even ponder clambering into. From here, there was only one way to go – and it would deposit me in the cryogenic chamber at the command section's core. With no other choice, I removed the metal grate and clambered out into the white, fifteen meter square chamber.

In the center of the chamber, attached to a metal column that disgorged from the ceiling, were the cryogenic tubes we used for hypersleep. They were arranged around the column like the petals of some metal flower, each with the glass canopy swung wide. There were five – one for each of my former crewmates and myself.

I breathed a slight sigh of relief as I entered the room. It was perhaps the best armored and protected area in the whole command section, and even had its own power supply. Vera had tapped into it to keep the command section powered after the alien had cut the feed lines from the aft engine section.

There was one last chance to escape from this nightmare in this chamber. While the command section itself could be disconnected from the rest of the ship in case of an emergency, the cryosleep chambers offered one additional level of protection – in case of disaster, the tubes could be loaded into an emergency escape vehicle – an EEV – which could then be jettisoned as a sort of minimal escape pod. The EEV could only provide minimal life support and minimal thrusters – just enough for a splashdown on a nearby planet.

My first act once I was inside was to take the emergency axe from its housing near the door and use it to smash the control panel, locking me in. Once I was satisfied that Uncle - or whatever was now in control of the ship - would not be able to open the door, I moved over to the wall that faced towards the aft of the ship and exposed the capsule's control panel. I took a few moments to ensure the panel was still operational. It appeared that the diagnostics had wiped the alien intruder from the station's console, and my command security codes were still intact.

Setting the axe beside me, I quickly started working the controls, firing up the sequence to ready the EEV. I watched as the power coupling engaged, charging and fueling the EEV. My hands danced over controls as I ensured oxygen, hypersleep fluids and a dozen other preparations were made. As a safety precaution, I disabled the EEV's black box and the download of the ship's logs to the EEV's computer banks. I didn't want to risk it becoming infected with the alien virus. As preparations continued, the floor to my right slid open, revealing pair of black rails surrounded with machinery. Behind me, the huge column slowly turned, aligning the first open hypersleep pod with the rails. On the wall beside me, the white padding slid away, revealing a ramp designed to accept the hypersleep chamber and send it to the EEV.

I was so involved in getting the EEV on line, I failed to notice the door to the room slowly and silently creep upward. If I had been paying attention, I might have noticed the reflection of a black, armored shape slide into the room and quietly lower the door behind it.

However, as I felt a shadow fall over me, I swung around, grabbing at the axe. I was just barely too slow. Without making a sound, the one armed black behemoth had slipped up on me. It's bone-encrusted tail whipped at me, the bladed barb stabbing into my leg.

Luckily, my arm was already in motion, even as I started to collapse from being lanced. I brought the axe about, severing the creature's tail. It recoiled with a screech, and as I collapsed from the wound, I dropped the smoking axe and pulled the remains of the tail from my wound. Acid drops ate into the deck around me, but I was lucky none of it sprayed me or my hands.

The ebony, armored demon moved less than a foot away as I crouched, huffing as I clenched the bleeding wound to my leg. Slowly rising from the trench, the creature held its arms upward and outward, as if it were readying to draw me in its steely embrace. The lipless maw of the creature grinned at me and it uttered a low hiss as if warning me not to escape. Behind it, the barbed tail twitched, the end flicking red fluid from where it had driven the spike-like tip through my leg.

I jammed the emergency button on the control panel before me. The alien prepared to vault at me, but the heavy thud to its left caught its attention. It paused for a moment too long to address the source.

Four hundred kilos of metal and glass thundered down the rails at the skeletal creature. The cryogenic capsule only reached up to the shoulders of the creature, and it was swept up in the tube's passage, its head and arm protruding over the top as it screamed defiantly at me, making one last futile attempt to grasp me. In less than a second, the tube covered the ten meters of space and rammed the alien into the emergency escape tube. What didn't fit simply slid along the length of the tube and fell onto the exposed machinery between the rails. The hissing sound of decaying metal, sparking wire and severed hydraulic lines rang out as the cryogenic tube slowed and lodged in the escape chute.

I hauled myself about and worked the controls as emergency alarms sounded throughout the section. Within moments, I brought the emergency system sprinklers on-line and shut off the power to the ram system. My only chance of preventing another hull breech was the faint hope that the accumulated spray would dilute the acid from the creature's remains.

As the cold water sprayed at me, I could feel myself slipping. The sleep-inducing poison in the creature's barbed tail was doing its work. If I didn't find some way to bind the wound in my leg before I passed out, it was likely I would never wake again.

I knew there was an emergency medical kit in the room, near where I had retrieved the axe. It wouldn't fix my problem for long, but it should give me enough time to make it to the medlab. It took a few precious minutes to locate and apply the requisite compress to my leg, and by that time, my head was swimming. It was hard to focus, both from the loss of blood and the alien poison in my veins. I could feel something crawling under my skin, like a hundred ants hurriedly marching up and down across my nerves.

"Sonabitch," I murmured through grated teeth as I came up to the door, realizing it was shut. I reached down to expose the panel for the manual operation to open the door, and the ground thrust itself toward me.

I only faintly remember cranking the door open and slipping through it. I hazily remembered alarm klaxons and warning lights assaulting my senses as I stumbled my way towards medlab. In the four-way hall to the medlab I glanced at the door to the aft section and saw the open ventilation grate that led to the drydock. Between alarms and a mockingly feminine voice chastising me, I swore I could hear scuttling. A male voice rang out, "Diagnostics complete." Then everything went black.

When I came to, I was in the medlab, lying in a bed. A black, helmeted figure loomed over me. With a shout, I tried to push it away.

"Steady," the black-clad figure towering over me calmed. It took a moment to realize it wasn't the black demon that had been torturing me with its presence. It was human, and there were two others in the room with him. Both were armed with chrome rifles.

"My name is Mack," he said in a baritone voice, meant to be comforting. "You must be the captain," he stated.

I was still groggy, but I answered him, "Yes. Yes, I am."

"Beverly Brett, of the _Organella_," Mack stated to his two men. They gave a slight nod, but said nothing.

"What are you doing on my ship?" I asked. Above me, the ship's intercom gave a slight, static hiss that seemed to drive into my ears. Mack and his men seemed unaffected.

"We received a distress call some distance out," Mack explained, helping me to sit up. The pain was still strong in my leg and it was still covered with gauze, so I guessed I hadn't been out too long. "Your ship was derelict when we found it, didn't answer any hails," He stated.

"We - ran into something ... alien," I stated.

"Really?" Mack asked with a salacious grin. "Well, the rest of my boys are checking the ship. If it's still here, we'll find it."

I suddenly remembered the egg in the aft section of the ship. "There's still ...something aboard," I tried to warn him. "You should get your men out." The intercom hissed again, and I swore it sounded like feminine laughter, but Mack nor his men made any indication they heard anything.

"Ah, they can take care of themselves," Mack stated, folding his arms across his chest.

"You don't understand," I said, "It gets big - it's ... smart." I could feel my heart thumping in my chest as the intercom's static seemed to morph into quiet, conspiratory whispers.

"Not all that smart," Mack said. "We found part of the damn thing decapitated in the hypersleep chamber. Ruined any chance of you using the EEV to escape," he added, "So it's a good thing we found you before your whole ship shut down."

"There's another aboard," I tried to explain. "A parasite. It'll attach to the crew." I felt a strange shiver run down my spine as I almost felt I could feel - something - scuttling down the hall outside medlab.

"They're wearing space suits," Mack said dismissively. "Besides, you killed one, didn't you?"

I didn't like his tone. Pushing him back slightly, I murmured, "Yes." I thought I saw something like white fingers lingering at the edge of the sundered medlab door, but when I looked again, there was nothing there.

"That thing's gonna make us rich, you know that," He stated, taking a step back. "Once we get it back to the company, that is," he said.

"We can't," I winced, "that thing killed my crew." The features of Mack's men seemed to melt before my eyes, their skin becoming leathery and warted...

"An' now its dead," Mack retorted, snapping me out of my hallucination. "We send what's left back to Earth, they dissect the corpse, we get a finder's bounty and-"

"No," I stated stolidly. Mack's face scrunched, strange lines forming and I seemed to resemble something familiar ... something that had been over my face.

Mack stopped. "You're letting your personal feelings get in the way," He said.

"You bet I am," I stated, swinging my legs about so they could dangle off the bed. I almost regretted it as I still felt light-headed. I continued, "I've seen what one of those things can do. It's too smart to be controlled, too cunning."

"I'm sorry lady," Mack stated, "But it's my salvage now. If you don't want a part, fine. But it - and you are coming with me." I was about to protest, but Mack stated, "We found your ship adrift. She's crippled - can't go anywhere in its current state. Computer's a mess, engines are off-line and the AI's spouting nonsense. So, it's salvage. An' me and the boys are claiming her as such."

"This is a mistake," I warned, feeling my stomach catch in my throat.

"What's a mistake was offering you a share," Mack scowled, "Boys, get her to our ship."

The two men moved towards me, and what felt like bile rose in my throat. I gave a slight cough, which came out more like a choke. It was enough that Mack's men paused and looked at their captain.

I then realized there was something more going on, as I felt a sharp pang reverberate through my chest. A sudden fear caught me. How – it wasn't possible…

My eyes fell on something in the far corner of the medlab. Crumpled in the far corner, like a wad of newspaper lay a leathery insect-like creature. Eight long, spindly legs were drawn towards the oval form of its body. Twin flaccid, bag-like flaps protruded from the sack-like body, with a long, whip-like tail coiled between them. I'd seen it once before, on Holiday's face.

As another stabbing pain rocked my chest, I nearly sobbed. There was no longer static coming from the intercom. I could distinctly hear Vera's, cool soothing voice welcoming me home. Instead, I faced Mack. "You're about to find out how big a mistake this is," I managed to gasp.

And then as the pain in my chest peaked, I joined my crew.

END TRANSMISSION


End file.
